2 Weeks in Spain with a sideorder of Dubai

Arrived home tonight - what a trip, what a treat!





I grabbed these pics from my Instagram account, which I updated daily while I was away - it was fun..
I really do love travelling in the cyber age .. people give you real-time feedback and tips, and you can look things up
as you go if you get stuck ( such as the time I wanted a bowl of olives but the lady had no idea what I was talking about. 
I google-translated automatically on the spot and got the Spanish translation: "de oliva". 

Yeah, I know .. lost in translation .. ha ha! )


 

To view them chronologically, you have to start at the bottom image and work from the bottom right corner,
reading left and moving upwards.  Or, if you view them "the regular way", you can start at our day of between-flights
rest in Dubai .. and work backwards.

The itinerary over 2 weeks:

Melbourne
Barcelona
San Sebastian
Biarritz, France
Bilbao, Spain
Leon, Spain
Lerma, Spain
Madrid, Spain
Dubai
Melbourne


Today is reality - washing, shopping for food, picking up the cats, and back to the packed lunch whining.. ah well ..
all good things must come to an end, and Home is good too. 

Back to work this week too.
If you've sent an email while I was away, i've come back to a tonne, so give me a day or so to get back
to you if you are waiting :)

Thanks for following!

- Leanne

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A Week in the Country: Loire Valley, France

Another random catch-up from our 2012 holiday.

This post is made up solely of images taken on the property we rented.
So beautiful, I could have spent our whole week here and venturing nowhere but our own backyard.

You can find our more about renting Les Averries here ←










The afternoons were so lovely we planned every day to be home by 5pm for a swim.
Our days spent out & about, it was hard to come home to this :)







We stayed in a township by the name of Bougueil, and it was beautiful and perfect.

The Café de la Promenade was just down the road, and there were markets to explore,
Troglodite caves, castles, wineries and beautiful countryside to drive through. 

Heaven.
















While the kids swam, I explored the amazing garden:


























Being inside was just as divine.  I was a bit sad the weather was so awesome and I couldn't
light that amazing fireplace .. maybe i'll have to come back for a winter visit too ...

















I would totally recommend visiting Bourgueil if you are visiting France. 
Our host, Michel has an office on site ( in the converted barn ) but is very
respectful of privacy.  He was actually away in Paris on business for most of our visit,
but was only a phone call away if needed.

Inside, there is a bureau of maps and pamphlets of things to do and a handwritten
note from Michel regarding when the markets are on, and which restaurants are good,
and how to get to the Hyper-U ( a huge shopping centre ) or the pharmacie.

The rental boasts everything you could possibly need ( details here ) and comfortably sleeps 6.
It was simply, gorgeous.
















The most perfect holiday ever.
Now you can probably understand why Amsterdam was a bit underwhelming for me?











It was hard to leave .. in fact, while the boys swam, AB and I sat under the willows and
breathed in the air ( and the wine ) and planned how we could possibly stay forever.







Alas, it was not to be..

The Café de la Promenade

Hello Readers!

Thanks for sticking by me while we spend our days in a little one bedroom flat* while renovating.

I'm so glad I took time out this year .. it's very frantic working for yourself, and often not much fun.
As well as trying to keep a family on track, and people fed and clean, I not only photograph, but there is a whole lot
of other things going on.  I have to be the 'fun girl' that turns up and takes the photos, but then I also have to be the
marketing girl, the internet guru girl ( have you seen my website?  Unfinished and awful for 4yrs, I finally took it down
and replaced it with a 'coming soon' placebo.  I've been hoping to find some time to fix it this year while áway from work' ..
fingers crossed. ), and that mean girl from accounts who has to hassle people up for the money.  Hate that. 

So it's the last year before my littlest guy starts big school and we're renovating. 
At first we packed my work materials ( the packing stuff, the lenses, the backdrops, the flash gear, etc )
in smart, easy to get to places - just in case! -  .. but then the builder said we had to clear out the room
that was previously going to remain untouched, and everything was stacked elsewhere in a big jumbled rush.

Hunting around for an 8x12"matt could most certainly result in death by accident.

So i'm glad to be taking time out.  It does mean a loss of income at a time we most need it, and I think it took
my husband a little bit of time to get over that, but I was seriously overwhelmed and very unhappy. 
My work/life balance was non-existant, and my stress levels were out of this world.

The International Society of Professional Wedding Photographers illustrate it pretty perfectly here I think:




Anyhoo, all that aside, there is always a light at the end of the tunnel and when I return i'll be extra fresh
and recharged and be working from a great new space.  Super organised.


- - - - - - -  - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - --  --


Anyway, all that dreary has nothing to do with the title of this post.
I came in here as I wanted to share some photographs of a little café we visited in France last year.
In a way i've taken some inspiration of this fabulous space and brought it home to my renovation,
although my renovation is a new fit-out with clean lines and modern materials. 

I retained a tiny bit of grunge, much to the builder's confusion. 
But it really is more like me to be rustic over being perfect. 
I'll share in here when it's all done... at the moment we're at plastering stage.

So, without further ado, the Café de la Prominade, as seen as a book I made for my husband this Christmas past ..
I hope you enjoy it:






































* it's actually a 2bd apartment, but we decided to all bunk in one room for sleeping, and use the other for my computer, the kid's X-box and toys and books ...

Les Marchés de la France :: Melbourne Travel Photographer

As you can see by that last frame, not everybody loves a market!

These images are a mixture from two markets we visited while away.

Firstly, the oldest food market in Paris, built in 1615 under the rule of King Louis XIII; the Le Marche des Enfants Rouges. The name, which literally means the Market of the Red Children, refers to the red uniform worn by the children of the orphanage that was located nearby.

It was an amazing market, and the food we bought and dined on from here curled your toes it was that darn good.
Unfortunately, I visited on the Saturday I arrived, and before I had unpacked.
The last thing I wanted to do was take pictures .. until of course I got there.
Um, wow. Spectacular, people, tables, laughter, food, children, colour, light .. a visual feast.

We left before the following Saturday, and I never did capture it how it lived & breathed.
Other days were more low key, and, as I try to immerse in the culture on holidays ( rather than be a tourist ), I felt I should be more reverent as I wandered around, and less happy-snappy.

Yes, I can be a bit weird about such things :)


 

Marché des Enfants Rouges | 39 rue de Bretagne | Marais District





The other market/s we attended were in the 2nd half of our trip, which we spent in the Loire Valley.

We stayed in a pretty little village called Bourgueil, and despite the huge Hyper-U supermarket down the road, and another smaller supermarket in the village, it seems everyone just shops at the local markets every Tuesday and Saturday.
After our lovely host ( and i'll elaborate on our delightful accomodations in another future post - it deserves a specialty highlight ) told us we should NOT miss the Saturday market, we were amused to find lots of ricketty tables full of junk, racks of preloved and handmade clothes, what i'm pretty sure were 'copycat' Laguiole knives at the price point they were being sold at, and bins of LP records etc.

Fabulous for old people and hipsters, but there's no lingering and browsing/digging for marketgold with kids and an easily bored husband. It was HUGE, there were people everywhere and there were rides for the kids. Surely they can't do this every Saturday?

No-one appeared to be making any incredible fortune, but it's obviously a big local drawcard.





Our "landlord" also advised we go to the Tuesday market, with more of an emphasis on food.
Since we were renting a self-contained cottage, I was still cooking every night ( if we ate out, we did this during the day - long days out and about left everyone pretty much exhausted by even'time.. plus .. the weather was divine and our cottage had a pool. The kids could.not.wait to get home every evening and swim,swim,swim ) so a fresh 'local' shop made us feel like locals :)

So imagine our surprise when we went back into town on the Tuesday, to find a lot of the same stalls from Saturday, just as many people ( i'm telling you, the roads are closed, you park MILES away, and the crush of people is like Melbourne peak hour ).

OMG, we were overwhelmed .. people lined up for their favourite butcher and happily chatted and waited. The one thing I did notice ( and appreciate ) was the slower pace. As I mentioned earlier, the lure of the Euro did not seem to be a big factor for many stalls.. although i'm sure all the regular food traders do well.

Also, if you find yourself without baguette and cheese on a Sunday, you'd better have a back-up plan.
Unlike in Australia where a day of rest is non-existant, even the Hyper-U was shut.
And the pharmacie.
Probably the police station too.

Not.such.a.bad.thing.





Does that House Specialty look a bit boring to you?

Because OMG, we devoured it. Foodies, I can't even remember how to describe it.. like a huge glazed pastry thing with lashings of vanilla custard-cream in the middle and rock sugar on the outer? All I know is it was so fresh, it seemed a sin to let it sit and perhaps curdle.. you know, and so, we didn't want to sin..





( This is not a trash can or an ashtray, thankyou )

Goodness, it's nice to have some time off and be a little bit more personal on here.
I hope you're also enjoying a little change from the usual too.


xx Lea