Had the most fantastic week/weekend in france.sigh...a crazy week but every second was beautiful.

monday was a holiday!so we decided to get our asses down to chateau des versailles, a 40 min train ride.we ended up having our picnic at jardin du luxembourg instead cos it was to late by the time jan finished her frenc placement test.bought crackers, smked salmon, cherry tomatoes, apples, pepper goat's cheese..it was a lovely day 'cept for the part we had to look for chairs...as the whole of paris was there too..

had perfect attendance at french class, for once, finally as well.

tuesday was a day of recuperation after last week; going out everyday (ive come to realise im quite a homebody) and the crazy trip to milan.

(the kitchen fits one person at a time. that's a 33 sq metre home for you.)


wednesday was green curry day, had jan's thai schoolmate over.unfortunately she cant do thai food..so i wasn;t able to squeeze any thai recipes off her..i must say tt, 'asian gourmet' green curry paste is very more than decent.throwing in some aubergines, fishballs, potatoes and chicken made it all SO good, ahhhh...for the love of spice!!

spent thursday at the chateau des versailles.made smoked salmon sandwiches a delicious salad accompanied by Jan's now infamous Tiramisu.spent the entire afternoon lazing on the grass and taking in the atmosphere of the chateau;did a little boating, admired the sculling training the locals were doing, staying on til the no one else was leftin on the compunds. The grandeur of the gardens and chateau was even greater with us being the only 2 souls left and the security guard who appeared suddenly to chase us out. heh....

friday was a mad rush.after procrastinating for the longest time, and saturday's Fontainebleu trip..i was finally motivated enough to hunt for a BIKE SHOP!

yes. i THOUGHT, there would be plentiful; alas due to big Sport corporations like Decathlon and GO SPORTS, many smller bike places have closed. i went hunting for 3 different internet advertised addresses only to find a resataurant or cafe in their places. starting to panic i tikamed one of the addresses in my 'cycling France' guide book and finally hit the jackpot; although it was 3 differnt train changes away, decided to trust the tikam-method anyway, an old-school choice, predecessor of eenie-meenie-mineey-moe. BINGO. (divine intervention mostly too, prayed over it!)
Rando Cycles proved her worth, fixng up all the dented, creaky bits, oiling and pumping in the air, bring new life into the old Trek 1oo0.

made friends with Fleurian the bike-mechanic and had good fun conversing in broken english and French.Nice boy. one of the more decent youngsters i've seen in paris.

my first ride on parisian roads!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
porte de vincinnes (bike shop) to porte d'orleans (home)WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE...it was quite a lung-busting ride, (pollution) not because it was hilly or anything, but the number of cars! plus the narrowness of the lanes.

still... i felt really safe, like queen of the road actually, its really lovely when bikes and buses are entitled to their own special lanes.ha! wonder if singapre wil ever do that,another way to reduce the number of cars on the rd perhaps..com'on PAP..listen up!


(beginning fr our hse to the train station!)


so comes the weekend....twas the best time!!whizzing around in Fontainebleu, like Versailles, its part of the ile-de-France. the periphery towns of paris, linked together by the seine river.a real adventure with our bikes on hand we cycled to gare d'lyon to catch the hourly train.40 minutes separates lush forest roads filled with pines and birches, gorges, quaint cottages and chateaus with enormous gardens from congested,tired paris. (still the lifestyle beats those of us singaporeans; cos the parisains have such gorgeous weekend havens to run too!)


getting there was easy-peasy. with the assistance of a very kind gentleman we met on the train, he inroduced us to some pretty chep hotels.immediately after settling in and dumping our bags we rushed out to grab at the crisp air and sunshine.met a bit of rain nearer the end of the evening, but at least we saw the whole town.our dinner encounter was the cherry on top of te whipped cream.

made friend's with jimmy the chef of pizza pazza. had the most incredible vege pizza. jimmy tosses ut 250 pizza a night! you should have seen his pizza-making hands, forearms and biceps!!!!!
more inspiringly he gave us some of his personal (pizza) history, totally captivating jan and i with the love in his eyes as he spoke bout the beauty of italian food and his adopted-province; (french dude, bred and trained in Parma, Italy). Grana parmigiana and jambon(ham) parma.......as he spoke and introduced ingredients to us, our pizza kinda grew in variety and portion of ingredients!you will understand with the following picture when i say i had the best pizza of my life thus far!

sunday was spent cycling to the renaissance painters' village of barbizon.ok. i adore serendipity, but i guess when it comes to cycling you just have to plan, know which rd to take and exits to follow.

(the map was upside down! according to the toursit office! imagine if we followed!)

aye, thankfully Barbizon was pretty straightforward, after some initial confusion.. we made it in the end!NFORTUNATELY, Jan's rear tyre was punctured right as we were reaching Barbizon!thank God it wasnt in the middle of he highway...had no choice but to cab back to fontainebleu, aye...still it was great fun :)

just behind our hostel is the forest and so before leaving Fontainebleu we went for a short hike.
my great-outdoors urges, placated in a weekend!


(a last pizza before leaving)

aye!Daph and Gloria!! hurry over!! we will go again together!!!