Paris for the recurring traveler – Day 1

I’ve been to la Ville de l’Amour a few times, visited different areas, seen the main attractions as well as not so well known neighborhoods, but maybe not enough time to just live the city and make it my own.

Taking advantage of my sister’s hospitality I went back in the beginnings of November for 5 days. And it made such a difference! Maybe it was the sun that accompanied me during most of my journey, maybe it was a more open and carefree mindset or maybe it just was that – and please forgive my cheesiness-  Paris is probably the most beautiful city in the world. Period.

So, if like me, you’ve visited the capital of France more than once, let me share with you some of the routes I took wandering around the city. We’ll start with the fancy 5ème arrondissement, on the left side of the Seine.

Day 1- 5ème: Jardin des plantes, Mosquée de Paris, Rue Mouffetard, Saint-Étienne-du-Mont

So this time I decided to visit the Jardin des Plantes by Gare d’Austerlitz metro station encouraged by a friend.

Universal children’s day around the world

Over the course of my trips I like to take pictures, not only of the main attractions, but also of locals and their way of life. To celebrate the Universal Children’s Day I’ve made a selection of some of my travel photos where kids are the main characters.

Miyazima (Japan)

One of the places I highly recommend you to visit is the beautiful island of Miyajima in Japan. There’s a a Torii Gate that seams to float on the water when tides are high, and when they are low you can approach it by foot. You can see its red reflection in the background and the little kid playing with sand and water.

Atlas (Morocco)

When we travelled to Marrakech in 2011 with my family we made a trip to the mountains of Atlas. It was like a trip in time seeing those kids playing with toys from my grand parent’s time.

Jardins du Luxembourg (Paris)

While visiting my sister in Paris last year, I took my camera and went for a walk in the beautiful gardens of Luxembourg. In the pond it was possible for kids to rent little boats and let them float away,

Nara (Japan)

Again in Japan we met this group of cute schoolkids visiting Nara in front of its Buddhist temple.

Poblesec (Barcelona)

Correfocs are very popular in the Catalan tradition, it consists of a group of Diables ( Devils) lighting fireworks and dancing. I had never seen such a young and proud diable before!

Hope you enjoyed those pictures, have a great day!

Rock en Seine 2012: Sunday’s review and pictures

Last Sunday, 26th of August I went for the first time to the Rock en Seine Festival in Paris. I have been to other big festivals before and I have to say that the ambiance and organisation were really good. No stress, very few pushes around, large spaces to lay down under the sun, lots of families with kids, some funny costumes and great bands such as Passion Pit, The Dandy Warhols, Foster The People or Green day.

The Festival is located by the river Seine (Iguess this comes with no surprise), and the views when approaching the showground were beautiful.

This year’s poster design was inspired by vintage circus characters, and all the atmosphere from the big wheel to the candy stalls and the special exhibition were related to that topic. It was like being in a village fair.

My intention was to see Bombay Bicycle Club first of all, but they were playing way too early (3 p.m.) and by the time we got there we were only able to hear Shuffle (which is my favourite song, so it wasn’t that bad).

Later we headed to the other side of the festival to see Passion Pit and were lucky enough to be in the first row! I really liked their album “Manners” and was afraid to be disappointed by their live performance, but though the sound wasn’t perfect, the singer, Michael Angelakos was full of energy and we really enjoyed their performance singing along as loudly as possible. The climax came with their last song Little Secrets when the audience went higher and higher and higher…

We then headed to the main stage to hear the end of The Dandy Warhols‘ show. You could tell those guys have years of experience, the sound was fantastic and Courtney Taylor-Taylor’s deep voice had a soothing effect while laying down on the grass.

And after some waiting time, fighting our way through hordes of late teens, finally came Foster The People!! By far the best show of the festival. They managed to light up the crowd with a series of hits one after the other Helena Beat, Call It What You Want, Houdini… And the finale Pumped Up Kids accompanied by a white confetti rain and an electronic remix that made everyone jump like crazy.

Postcards from Paris

Paris in Spring is cloudy, quite cold and wet. Yet it’s colourful, lively and vraiment très joli, Paris is always beautiful no matter what time of the year. Wandering around Le Marais on a Sunday morning, discovering hidden student pubs around la Sorbonne, getting to the rooftop of the Centre Pompidou…

Cause an image is worth a thousands words, voici some not-quite-touristic Paris postcards: