If you're tired of London, you're tired of life

One thing I've heard from several friends lately is that I'm "always on holiday". This is probably the impression I give on the blog as well, since I tend to only bother with blog and facebook posts when there's something interesting to report. That and I took my summer holidays a bit "out of phase" with everyone else, in early July and mid-September, so people just noticed it more. It's true I love to travel as much as possible though, and these past couple of months have been busy with long weekends.

Way in advance, I came up with the perfect present for Jules's birthday in October, a trip to London. He had mentioned wanting to visit several times, since he'd only been once on a school trip before, and then I came across somewhere the fact that an Escher exhibition was opening up the day before his birthday, so it was fate. Eurostar tickets booked, hotel picked, all that remained was to wait and not spill the beans to him on our surprise destination.

Until, that is, my parents were visiting Brussels in August and suggested that we might want to come over to London at the end of September to celebrate their 45th wedding annversary. 45 years, that is definitely an achievement worth celebrating! So I buttoned my lip and figured that, while I may not have planned to take two trips to London within three weeks in normal circumstances, we would probably still get a lot out of it.

Amazingly, even though all my family and friends that we hung out with in September knew that we were coming back again a few weeks later, no-one said a word. My parents even said a final goodbye, "see you in New Zealand" that was evidently very convincing. I managed to keep Jules in the dark right up until we went through the check-in for the Eurostar. It was quite funny, we had a little time before getting on the train, so I encouraged him to sit and drink his coffee just outside the Eurostar terminal, and right up until the last minute he couldn't make up his mind whether I had brought him to the Eurostar bit as a trick or if we were really going to London again.

Since Jules hadn't really done the big London sights, we tried to pack in several of the big museums, including the British Museum, National Gallery, and the Natural History Museum. As well as the Escher exhibition of course, which was out in the middle of nowhere in the Dulwich Picture Gallery. I would probably describe myself as indifferent to Escher, but it was a really good exhibition. Seeing the original prints up close, you could really see the artistry and skill. It was amazing to see the different techniques he mastered, from using different methods to create the prints (engraving, carving etc.) and the different kinds of optical illusions and artifices he employed. I definitely came away with a greater appreciation of his work.

Egyptian art at the British Museum

Cute medieval hunting scene, seems to be a jolly jape for all involved

Jules and a pharaonic friend

Scary Aztec mask

Yuss!

In Chinatown

People crossing the Millennium Bridge

In front of the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square (we had beautiful weather by the way)

A bit windy crossing the Thames

For their anniversary dinner, we went out to a Michelin-starred Peruvian restaurant, Lima. I suppose if you're going to try Peruvian cuisine, it makes sense to start with the best! The vibe was quite different from other starred restaurants I've been to, more casual service and even oontsy oontsy background music! It was actually quite nice for a family dinner as opposed to the more formal French fine dining tradition. The menu was quite eclectic, featuring cactus desserts and blue potato chocolate mousse (which I had) amongst other exotic fare. I don't know how representative it is of your average Peruvian cuisine, but it was good!

Guess that lady in the background really didn't want to be in our photo

On our second trip, after the Escher exhibition and saying goodbye to my parents on the Friday night (coincidentally, their flight back to New Zealand was on the Saturday), birthday boy opted to spend his special day in the Natural History Museum. Ye gods, it was crowded. Turns out gigantic strollers are not content to restrict themselves to annoying the crap out of everyone on pavements and buses anymore, but have invaded museums. The whole place basically looked like a daycare centre, but was as crowded as a nightclub. The only part we did was the dinosaurs, because Jules wanted to and I couldn't really say no since it was his birthday. The dinosaur section has a really cool concept - you go up some stairs and along a suspended walkway, so you are eye level with a lot of fossils and some animatronic dinosaurs, and then come back down to the bit with all the proper museumy information about the dinos. However, it was so busy and (as we found out later) the whole line is held up by the giant animatronic T-Rex at the end of it, that we spent a good 20 minutes packed into this walkway shuffling along with no escape. Nightmare.

We walked through Hyde Park from our hotel to the Natural History Museum (full of cute dogs!)

Jules and the T-Rex

Seems this T-Rex had to be put down

Outside the museum

I crowdsourced suggestions for our birthday dinner, and one of my friends suggested we try one of Peter Gordon's restaurants, Kopapa. Peter Gordon is a New Zealand chef, I think mostly known in New Zealand for pioneering a kind of Pacific Rim fusion food, and maybe known in the UK for now running Gourmet Burger Kitchen. Anyway, I thought it was a cool opportunity to have a little taste of home - not that Kiwis are running around eating fusion food all day long. It was the sort of menu where you look at it and feel a bit worried whether or not you're going to like it, but everything was really good.

They had special Rugby World Cup-themed cocktails. Jules betrayed us all by going for South Africa

Delicious terrine with a crispy poached egg (the ball on the left). I didn't know what they meant by it and had forgotten it was on the plate by the time it came, so I was delighted when I cut into it and the yolk came out. It normally annoys me when TV chefs describe food as "playful", but it was accurate for a change 

Main course cod, polenta and pea puree

We had a three-course menu, because I found a special deal for it online, but some of the people around us were having a tapas-style meal, which I would definitely go back for, looked yummy! We're probably Londoned out for the moment, not least because it's bloody expensive, but as Johnson and my blogpost title say, it takes more than two trips in three weeks to see all there is to see in the city.

Movin' on in

So while we were roadtripping around South-West France, wheels of a different kind were in motion. Jules and I have been together for over a year and a half now, which is a year and a half of what I term "medium-distance dating". Long-distance is a bit dramatic, since we spent every weekend together, and we've only been two to three hours' apart the whole time (traffic and so on depending). But still, it's obviously not quite the same when you have to say goodbye every Sunday evening and go back to your weekly routine on your own.

There have been high-level negotiations going on over when we could move in together, and the general consensus reached was to look into it some time after we got back from Albania. I think we both quite wanted to have at least one summer in Jules's apartment, which is sunny and has balconies on both sides, and it made sense to get summer holidays out of the way before he started a new job. Talk accelerated after Albania as well because it was the first time we'd spent longer than a week together and then it makes it harder to settle back into daily life without them.

Enough soppiness. Anyway, Jules started looking pretty much in the late August or the beginning of September, and within a week of sending his application to this one place, he had a phone interview, came up to Brussels to meet with them the following Saturday morning, and by mid-September, when we were due to go away on our trip, he was debating whether to hand in his notice before or after our holiday.

He decided to do it beforehand, and with the week's holiday, a weekend in London and another in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais, the month flew by and in mid-October, before I knew it, he was on my doorstep with all his portable possessions in the back of his car (his furniture thankfully stayed behind in his flat which is now rented out - and I never got to say goodbye to it!)

It's now two weeks in (more by the time this gets published, since for once I have stored up a number of posts in advance and am doling them out at a measured pace instead of dumping them over a few days and then radio silence for a month) and I don't think it has really dawned on me that he lives here yet. It doesn't help that we were back in London again the day after he moved in, or that this week he's gone away with his new work.

One major challenge is trying to fit two people's stuff into an apartment that has heretofore been set up for one person. Even just sorting through the duplicates of herbs and spices needed some strategic thinking (yeah, yeah, first world problems). So there's been a bit of an IKEA-fest, getting a second wardrobe, a little thing with drawers instead of the small coffee table, and replacing one of the bookshelves with a vitrine, which has the dual function of freeing up space in the kitchen and giving me somewhere to put my pretty things.

Room for more wine too :)

I fell in love with the Fables of La Fontaine series of Gien faience when I first moved to Brussels and have been collecting it since. They had a sale on a couple of months ago, and I rashly bought some of the Four Seasons plates too (on the left). I need to start having dinner parties so we can use them!

Coffee table replacement, aka storage for all the crap hanging about the lounge

I don't know how things will change from here. It's fair to say that living apart extends the "honeymoon period" somewhat, since it's always a special occasion when you see each other. But I'm pretty excited to do normal couple things like go to pub quiz on Mondays and occasionally meet up in town after work (Christmas markets!) or go to our favourite local restaurant which is only open for dinner on Thursdays and Fridays, so we could never normally go. And maybe I'll feel a bit more like my life is actually here in Brussels, and we might even make some friends (gosh, dreaming big here). It should be fun to find out :)

Update/ Time to publish this post and it's now been a month of living together. Still very early days of course, and to be honest, I still don't feel settled into the routine. It's more just like the weekends together have blended in to one another or something. The house is tidier, which is a bonus! I do clean, but I'm kind of a "big clean once a week" girl, whereas Jules is "little and often", which is a pain at the time but does result in a more continually clean dwelling. I miss having leftovers for lunch though! Hasn't quite filtered through to my brain to buy more food and cook larger quantities since the number of people eating has doubled. Boxes are mostly unpacked and stored, but will still be good to move somewhere bigger eventually, if only for the chance to get a larger fridge! (Also hampering that "cook bigger meals" thing.)

Lyon me*

The last stop on our trip - I swear blogging it has taken longer than it did in real time - was an overnight stopover in Lyon. Traffic and the Millau detour meant we didn't arrive until early evening, but we still had time for a quick walk around the Old Town's narrow, cobbled and touristy streets before dinner.

Lyon is at the confluence of two rivers. This one is the Sâone

In front of a wild horse fountain by the town hall

At certain intervals, steam came through the horses' nostrils, which was pretty cool

Lyon's been on the list for a long time. Everyone seems to like it. One evening and a morning is really not enough, but we had our priorities straight - food. Lyon is often known as the culinary capital of France, and when we're talking France, that's saying a lot. It is particularly known for its bouchons, bistros serving traditional Lyonnaise cuisine, often heavy on the offal. On our first evening, however, we opted to dine chez Paul Bocuse, the legendary Lyonnais chef who has held three Michelin stars for over 50 years. Well, sort of. Nice as that would have been, a three-star restaurant wasn't quite in the plan (or budget). Instead, we dined at one of his brasseries, Le Nord. Food and service weren't quite three star of course, but still a pleasant meal, and we can now say we've dined at a Paul Bocuse establishment at least!

Jules in front of a couple of bouchons in the Old Town

In the morning, it was raining (as I said, the rain followed us around for the whole trip), but that didn't stop us taking Lyon's nifty little funicular up the hillside, where we accidentally but fortuitously got off at the Roman arena. It was still rigged up with a stage and lighting for the annual summer theatre that takes place there - it must be a cool experience, sitting in an ancient theatre with a great view of the city. It was pretty miserable and deserted when we were there though!

My allergy to ironing letting me down again here

View of the theatre and the city

From there, it was a short walk to the Notre Dame Basilica, where we had been intending to go all along. This 19th-century church was as lavishly decorated as the one in Albi, just much newer, brighter and more sparkly. And way more crowded. It was pretty much as noisy and bustling as a nightclub in there, which is never my favourite experience. Pretty though.

The rain had stopped by the time we came out of the basilica, and we were treated to some lovely views over the city.

The domed building in the middle is the Opera House, to the right of the town hall

Looking across the Sâone to the peninsula between the two rivers

I don't know where this was, but I liked the blurred look (I cropped a finger out of the top right-hand corner)

We couldn't leave Lyon without a stop at one of those bouchons I mentioned above. We picked a place that co-ordinated with my outfit and settled in for a three-course lunch. Jules had tripe, which I was even brave enough to try (okay, although it looks pretty gross) and I had the Lyon speciality of pike quenelle. I'd always seen quenelle described as a sort of dumpling, and so I had imagined something quite small. Turned out it was quite big and dense, and covered in a yummy crab (or maybe lobster?) sauce. Delish in any case.

Cheers!

My generously-sized quenelle

As well as food, Lyon is famous for its festival of lights, which always takes place around my birthday. So who knows, maybe one year I'll be back to see all the things we no doubt missed on our very brief stop in Lyon!

*I even like puns that make no sense. Lean on me? No?

Millau, m'lady

On the way from Albi to Lyon, I sort of stole my Dad's ambition by visiting the Viaduct of Millau. We first got to see it from underneath, where there is a visitor's centre which takes guided tours inside one of the pillars, the tallest of which is 343 metres, making it the world's tallest bridge. Unfortunately, the tours only took place once an hour (or maybe once every half an hour, but whatever it was, it would have meant a long wait), and you weren't allowed to go outside on the side closest to the gorge without being on a tour, so it wasn't the best view.

We were going to just continue on our way, which actually didn't involve going over the viaduct, but we decided that since we had taken a detour to see the bridge, we may as well. This was lucky as, although driving over the viaduct itself wasn't so spectacular (it has high railings so you can't really see down over the sides), there is another visitor's centre on the far side of the bridge where we could actually get out and take photos of the whole thing. It's a pretty impressive feat.

The bridge from underneath

Driving over the viaduct

The view from the other side

Our route thenceforth to Lyon (we drove via Le-Puy-en-Velay, home of the famous lentils and also a large statue of the Virgin Mary) took us through the Massif Central. I had never been to this area, which apparently covers 15% of France, before, perhaps because there's not a lot there, really. Jules's French colleague told us it was known as the 'diagonale du vide' (empty diagonal) due to the low population densities and lack of large cities. It was fairly empty, but also very beautiful. It was really strange seeing the GPS telling us we were nearly a thousand metres up, yet be surrounded by green pastures and what was often flat land (with mountains on the horizon). I don't know what it looks like in winter, but in September you could have fooled me that we were at sea level most of the time.

High in the Massif Central

Albi back

We used Carcassonne (the lower city) as our base for visiting the region from Sunday to Wednesday, and on Thursday we headed north for a night in Albi. I had been obsessed with visiting Albi since I read about the city in the book about the Cathars. I had forgotten this, but when I mentioned Albi to my friend Liz, she rolled her eyes and said that when we drove past on the way to Toulouse, I treated the whole car to a lecture on the city. It's a wonder I have any friends at all. That was back in 2013, but clearly the ambition to visit the city hadn't died, and I made sure it was on our itinerary this time round.

It's not the biggest or most happening place, but it is really pretty, especially if you take a stroll on the river bank, enjoying the view of the cathedral and 11th-century stone bridge (which I think is the one in the background of the photos below).

I love the light in this one, the moody clouds did rain on us a bit, but made for dramatic photos

The main reason I had for visiting, though, was to see the cathedral. I think the photos above probably don't give a good idea of its scale. In a word, it's fricking massive. And really unusually shaped from the front, like some sort of strange titanic ship (but not the Titanic...) The Sainte Cécile cathedral, to give it its formal name, was built between the 13th and 15th centuries and claims to be the largest brick building in the world. The reason for the church's forbidding exterior is supposedly to symbolise the triumph of the church militant, commemorating its victory over the Cathars and reminding all who saw it of its might, both spiritual and earthly.

The bell-tower is 78 metres tall

What you wouldn't expect from the built-like-a-brick-you-know-what outside is the amazing interior. The austerity of the external architecture is completely forgotten when you step inside, with every surface covered in paintings, trompe-l'oeil decorations, carving and statues. Everything looks so dull and muted in photographs, but it was one of those breathtaking places where you hardly know where to look, so lovely is it in every direction.

Looking towards the rood screen, one of the few surviving examples in Europe that separated the areas reserved for those in orders and the rest of the congregation

The ceiling, which apparently represents the oldest and largest group of Italian Renaissance painting in France

The best impression I could capture of the painting which covered every surface

A close up of the beautiful stonework on the rood screen

Frescoes of the Last Judgement. To give an idea of scale, counting the doorway (which cut through the original fresco), the paintings here cover nearly 200 square metres

We also took an audio tour of the area behind the rood screen, which is full of amazing statues and carvings (it was too dim for these to really come out on photographs). I swear the audioguide went out of its way to be enormously boring, even for a huge nerd like me, but it's pretty. The treasury, upstairs, can be skipped, although I did find 20€ lying on the floor up there, so it lived up to its name.

We had a great dinner in the town, another cassoulet, but this time "à l'ancienne", made with pois carrés (square peas), which are mysterious little customers. As far as I can tell (Wikipedia came up with two options in French for pois carré), they may be known as grass pea, blue sweet pea, chickling vetch, Indian pea, Indian vetch, white vetch in English, but since I haven't heard of any of those things, it doesn't help much. Frankly, the traditional lingot beans were nicer, but the pois carrés had a bit of a crunch and a nutty taste which was not unpleasant for a change.