Beautiful Istanbul

Where we stayed - Penninsula Hotel

We love Istanbul! The sights are mindblowingly beautiful, the food is fantastic and the people are UBER friendly, especially to our kids. I know a lot of people think that travelling around the world with two young children would be a nightmare, but so far in Turkey it is going like a dream. The kids can’t walk 20 metres down the road without someone saying “Hello baby”, or patting their head or cheek or giving them a Hi-5, they literally are the centre of attention wherever we go.
 

Little Miss in front of the Blue Mosque

 

Checking out the ceiling in Aya Sofya

 

Mosaic in Aya Sofya

You’d expect to hear the word ‘marhaba' when being greeted by a Turk, but that was not the case when we met our first Turkish waiter in the pub we dined in, on our first night in Istanbul. He asked where we were from and when I told him we (the kids and I) were from NZ, he cracked up laughing and said to Dallas, “So, you’re a kiwi boy? Chur bro…. Kia cuzzie!” OMG, I laughed so hard I very nearly spat out my beer… Somehow I think this man has come across A LOT of kiwis in his time… He and another workmate also kept the kids entertained whilst Alain and I enjoyed the free peach flavoured nargileh (waterpipe) he gave us to smoke…

 

Courtyard at the Blue Mosque

 

Blue Mosque

 

Spice market

 

Beautiful mosaic candle holders

 

Fresh sardine sammies
 

Down on the waterfront in Eminönü you can buy a fresh sardine sammies straight from the boat. They are devine... The boats rock backwards and forwards so vigorously that at times it looks like the cooks will fall from the boat, or at least they'll drop your lunch in the water.

 

Check out the angle of their boat

 

Doner kebab anyone?

 

France has dogs everywhere... Turkey has cats. This was one of two kittens which lived outside our hotel. Dallas named this kitten Garfield.

Visiting old friends and realitives

We spent a fair bit of our time in France visiting Alain's long lost friends and realitives. I finally got to meet his uncle Yannick (who Alain hadn't seen in 15 years) as well as his cousins Eddy and Steve and also couple of his old school friends.

It was nice catching up with everyone even if it was only for an evening or so...

Mia and Nadette (Alain's aunty)

Alain, Steve and Yannick

Ghislaine, Sophie, Steve, Yannick, Alain, Dallas and Mia

Alain and Christophe

Alain and Harold

Alain and Ollivier

Happy 11th Birthday Gabin

It was Alain's oldest nephew's 11th birthday on the 19th July. We had a nice big family get together, where we ate lots of yummy food and drank wayyyyyy too much lovely wine. Gabin's birthday also happened to fall on Fathers Day, as well as the First day of Summer and it was also the nationwide music festival day too. It was a busy day in France!!

Later that evening after a few bevy's we had a table tennis championship going on, I'm not too sure who won, but Alain will tell he did though... (he lies though)

Cousins - Gabin, Baptiste, Dallas, Mia and Simon

Baptiste - aka: The nice one

Boy boy

Simon

Fredo

Mamoux

Papoux
Spiderman

Alain molesting the Champagne

Tonton Patrick

Tonton Patrick teaching Gabin how to open Champagne

Piggy Alain

Fun with food

Happy boy, happy Dad... Waste of strawberry tart though!

The Sabatier family

The Labet family

Family resemblance?

Table tennis championship - France vs France

Paradis du Pecheur

Fish face

First catch of the day

The first fish Dallas has ever caught

Checking out his first ever trout

One father. One son. One fish.... Perfect

In the tiny wee village that Celine lives in, there is a rather neat little fishing farm you can go to to fish for trout. You can catch as many fish as you like and then you just pay for what you've caught by the kilo before you leave.

Dallas is always going on about wanting to go fishing (I think he gets it from his Uncle Brendan), so of course we had to take him and Mia. We took them several times in fact and each time they caught at least one trout each, much to their delight (and the delight of our stomachs too).

Bloody computer..... Grrrrrrrr!!!!!!!

Well, our computer has shit itself, so until we either fix it or replace it there won't be any new posts... Not that we have done anything blog worthy lately.

We are now up in Céline's house and we have less than 2 weeks left in France...

The Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes

Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes (also known as the Domain)

The Basilica of the Immaculate Conception (Upper Basilica) and the Rosary Basilica (Lower Basilica from the bridge down)

The Grotto of Massabielle - Where Bernadette Soubirous saw apparitions of the Immaculate Conception (aka - The Virgin Mary)

Statues at the Basilica

Front entrance to the Rosary Basilica

One of the many mosaic pictures in the Rosary Basilica

The gold Cross and Crown which was gifted to Lourdes by the people of Ireland

On 11 February 1858, a 14 year old girl named Bernadette Soubirous claimed to have seen apparitions of the Virgin Mary in a small grotto on the outskirts of Lourdes. The apparitions always appeared in the same small niche within the grotto and a statue of The Virgin Mary now stands in its place. Among the instructions the Virgin gave were, ""Go and drink from the spring", "Go and tell the priests to build a chapel here", and "Have the people come here in procession". These three instructions in particular were to prove pivotal in the development of the Domain and its ceremonies here in Lourdes.

Thousands of pilgrims come to Lourdes each year, in hope of receiving a miracle to cure their illnesses (so far the Roman Catholic Church recognizes 67 miracles), they drink water from the spring which Bernadette discovered and which many people believe has healing properties, whilst others choose to immerse themselves in the baths containing Lourdes water.

The Basilicas are beautiful. They contain elaborate mosaic pictures depicting scenes from the Bible and have wonderfully crafted stained glass windows. There are also numerous statues which overlook Rosary Square which is can contain thousands of pilgrims at any one time.

The Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes is a wonderful site, definitely worth a visit...

Carcassonne - La Cité

La Cité - Carcassonne's medieval city
La Cité

Young boy... old city

Walking on the medieval walls
Walking around La Cité

For the past week, we've been on a mini road trip in François' new campervan. Our first port of call was to Carcassonne to visit La Cité, the medieval fortified hill top town which dates back to the 11th century.

La Cité is an important place to the Sabatier family. Alain's great grandfather was raised within the city walls, he later went on to raised his own family there and many many years later, Mia was also conceived there. So, it's 'home' to them in a way...

The kids had a great time walking and climbing around the exterior walls of La Cité. It was a pleasure to be able to take them to a place which holds so much significance in their family. One day, I hope they return to this beautiful town to discover more about where they are from...