Brille-iant

Today began with mist on the river, and ended with reflections and fireworks. It was a beautiful day which made the places we saw on our Taste of Normandy excursion from the Tapestry 2 look just glorious - though even in yesterday's rain, Bayeux and especially Beuvron-en-Auge could never look less than utterly gorgeous. Most of the passengers went on landing beach tours today, but having been there several times, I chose this option, which began slightly dismayingly with a motorway services area as the first stop, but then improved immeasurably.

Bayeux isn't new territory for me either, but the Tapestry is so well presented, and such a marvel in itself that it's hardly a burden to see it again. The audio guide is very good, and points out details easy to miss - I especially liked the lurking spies and the laughing horses. The town is small and super-pretty, with a river running through it and water mills along the banks, the whole place so neat and well-tended, and bright with flowers. You can also buy bits of shrapnel there, if you're so minded, or polished bullet cases from whichever army you fancy.

The taste part began properly at Beuvron, which is quite outrageously pretty. It's tucked away in the countryside, surrounded by green fields of cows, orchards, stud farms and rolling hills, and the village is a collection of half-timbered houses in so many variations of colours, materials, diagonals and cross-hatching that it should be over the top, visually - but it's not. Even though it's clearly cultivated for the tourist trade - you've never seen so many hanging baskets and flower boxes - it is just gorgeous.

Here we were the guests of Madame, a plump lady who knows her stuff in the kitchen, and served us in her summerhouse home-made pâté that was the best I've perhaps ever had, saussison and excellent bread (not the given you'd expect, in France). Then the main course was vegetable quiche, the edges crisp and yummy, and we drank cider with it. Next came Camembert, Pont l'Éveque and Livarot cheeses, each one at the point of perfection; and finally a 6-hour rice pudding, teurgoule, sweet, brown and glutinous. I think it's the best meal I've had so far.

Further into the countryside we visited Calvados Pierre Huet and had a tour of the distillery, learning about the production of cider, pommeau and Calvados. Of course there was a tasting, sitting in a room warmed underfloor by the waste hot water from the process, with the stills gurgling behind us: the cider was too sweet for me, the Calvados too strong, but the pommeau was just right. So was the apple tart that came with it, though we hardly needed it.

Back at the boat, over the soaring Brotonne Bridge, Caudebec had come to life, and its fine cathedral was open to enjoy the stained glass and the playing of the organ. Olivier served us his best meal yet, with white asparagus, and tender lamb that, of course, came from New Zealand; and then we enjoyed the music of Bruno and Fabrice. The French cabaret songs were more clichés, but perfect for the moment, a lot of fun, and were thoroughly enjoyed by the elderly dancers who circled the floor as Rouen's spotlit silos and metal-recycling plants passed outside the windows.

Il pleut

There are 100 words in Norman French for rain, we were told today. You can't always believe such things, but we were inclined to accept this one because it rained solidly all day. Of course that's why this region is so green and lush, and it's perfectly usual even in summer, but it was disappointing since we saw such pretty places today that really didn't look their best dripping wet - well, who does?

First was the village of Aizier, which is known for its thatched cottages. Long, low and narrow, they're apparently horrible to live in - cramped, dark, low-ceilinged and inconvenient since there are no corridors - but they're delightful from the outside. They're half-timbered, on stone foundations, and the distinctive thing about the thick thatched roofs with their beetle-browed little windows is that the ridges are planted with irises and succulents, to hold the reeds in place. Even the wells are thatched.

It was raining still at Pont Audemer, laughingly called the Venice of the North because it has some canals, but since there are fifteenth-century privies built over them which were in use till the 1960s, perhaps that claim is a bit grandiose. Or accurate, come to think of it. There were lots of lovely half-timbered buildings of various vintages (you can tell by the colour of the timber, apparently) and the market was on so it was obligatory to buy locally-made unpasteurised Camembert and Pont l'Eveque cheese, which will make their presence increasingly felt over the next few days in my stateroom on the Tapestry 2. The stall-holders were cheerful and friendly, and these two asked to have their photos taken.

And then the greatest tragedy of the day was that it continued to rain throughout our visit to the outrageously pretty little fishing port of Honfleur. It's very like Neuhavn in Copenhagen with its tall, narrow and colourful buildings surrounding the harbour where lots of boats are moored and every ground floor is a restaurant or gallery. The lanes are narrow and cobbled, there's an old-fashioned carousel, on the top of the hill is an unusual double-nave church, and good luck finding a shop that's not tourist-focused. It is gorgeous, though, even on such a miserable day.

Finally, the sun came out, far too late, but we did do a little post-prandial wander around our mooring-town - Caudebec, which on a Monday night is disturbingly silent and still. There is a fine Gothic church, tumbling streams of clear water, remnants of ancient walls, pretty window-boxes, some lovely buildings and, thanks to the war, many hideous ones - but scarcely a single local person to be seen or heard, just blackbirds singing, doves warbling and swallows swooping. Kind of creepy.

Manoeuvres

With thanks to Avalon Waterways for this cruise

I have waterlilies in my pond, and my dining room is yellow, but I went to Giverny anyway. More is, sometimes, more, and Monet's ponds are much bigger, and his dining room is very much yellower, and was all lovely to see. What wasn't quite so lovely was the sheer press of people there to do the same thing - Giverny gets over half a million visitors every summer - but we were there as early as possible and missed the worst of the queues.

Even though the morning was dull, the gardens were just gorgeous - very English, full of flowers I forget about back home and recognised again with delight - and were quite as much an attraction as Monet's paintings. He claimed, in fact, that the garden was his greatest masterpiece. So the art enthusiasts were happy, and so were the gardening fans, and so too the photographers who used both as an inspiration to get arty on their wanders around the grounds and the village.

I'm really liking the French version of half-timbered, which is brown and cream rather than the English black and white. The village is self-consciously gorgeous, neat and pretty and full of flowers, many of them wild; but it stops just this side of being twee and truly does deserve all its visitors. Having had a poster of his Poppies on my wall for years, way back, it was a treat to see the real thing.

The simple pleasures continued as we sailed further along the Seine, each bend bringing new delights: cows knee-deep in the river, swans and herons, farmhouses, trees, hills, occasional mansions; and the ship so silent that the sound-track was ripples on the banks, the breeze through the leaves, and bird song courtesy of blackbirds, chaffinches and doves. It was so relaxing to sit in the sun in my suite, the ranch sliders wide open, and have it all to myself. Well played, Avalon.

We arrived at Les Andelys where the locals were enjoying live music in a park by the river, while we climbed the steep hill to its castle, Chateau Gaillard, a romantic ruin of white limestone with wide views over the river's bends and the rural countryside. The guide here was easily puffed so I left her behind and climbed up to explore it myself and, though it was scattered with irritating Chinese tourists, the familiar charms of old rock sprinkled with poppies prevailed. It's a twelfth-century castle and has, naturally, an eventful history but its lowest moment surely must be during the 1204 siege when the soldiers, alarmed at how the villagers who had taken refuge there were eating all the supplies, declared them 'bouches inutiles' - useless mouths - and ejected them to spend a miserable winter caught between the castle walls and the attacking forces. Harsh.

And the final simple pleasure of the day was the success of the manoeuvre to reclaim our rightful table in the dining room, after it had been usurped by interlopers at lunch. It took planning, determination and some small personal sacrifice, but victory was ours.

Quelle belle journée!

Looking for something a bit different to do today, after strolling through the pleasant and peaceful Montparnasse Cemetery,  we took the Metro to the Promenade Plantee, which is a former rail line now the preserve of pedestrians and cyclists. It's down below road level and so is remarkably peaceful, the traffic reduced to a distant hum and the birdsong and pinging of bikers' bells the main things to hear. The cycling looked so appealing that we went back up to the city and sought out a public bike stand, to hire ourselves some machines.

Well, the theory is good, but the practice for us anyway was not very practised, and it took so long for the three of us to work through the process of punching buttons to enter numbers that by the time the last bike was released from the stand, the half-hour hire period for the first was well begun. So, we spun away along the path, through tunnels, past water features, skimming along satisfyingly fast and free - and then reached the end of the cycleway, scarcely 10 minutes later. That was disappointing, but there was no option but to relinquish the bikes at the nearest stand and continue on foot.

The Viaduc des Arts was lovely, though: this time an elevated rail line, pleasantly landscaped with water features, trees, wild flowers, benches, fountains and trellised archways, and giving satisfying views over the traffic below, into the first floors of apartments and of architectural details on buildings we would never have noticed from street level. What a good idea!

Paris on a fine June Saturday was, of course, fairly heaving with people, not all of them tourists like me - plenty of locals out enjoying their city too, picnicking in the parks or on the banks of the Seine. And why wouldn't they, with views like this?

Bienvenue à Paris

Today belonged to Quân. He was my Greeter, arranged at the last minute on the internet: a local happy to show strangers around his part of town for no fee, just the pleasure of sharing. And so much he shared! "I will take you through my life," he promised, and so he did, from his first home and school, through to the church where he was married and the place he had his reception. Not where his divorce was decreed, though, oddly... He was fun, and so eager and enthusiastic and energetic that he quite wore us out by the end. From 10am we were meant to finish at 3pm, but he kept thinking of more places he had to show us that were "so special", so in the end it was 5pm when we said goodbye.

It was a great day, though, and he showed us so much that we would never have found on our own - in fact, we would never have gone to the 13th arrondissement at all, and then we would have missed the gorgeous little cobbled lanes with cats and honeysuckle, excellent street art, the markets, churches, prisons (yes!), parks and gardens. Also the tower blocks. He did give us both sides of the 13th, although he didn't see it that way, raving about the years he lived on the 29th floor of one of the hideous Olympiad towers. I said he was enthusiastic.

He took us to a Vietnamese restaurant for lunch (he's half Vietnamese) in what he called Chinatown but it was really just residential with a few restaurants and herb shops, and a temple under one of the tower blocks. That was our only chance to sit down, and then we were on our way again, learning about the gutter-cleaning, the fountains, the homeless people, how to use the public bikes and toilets, looking at the plaques to Resistance people killed. And we ended by meeting an artist and being shown his studio in a private little mews. It was great, it really was, and a lot of fun - though our feet were killing us by the end.

We ventured out for dinner, though, nobly resisting the jet lag, and enjoyed the buzz of a warm Friday night in Paris with the pavement tables full and the sky still so light. We went along one street that was full of inviting crèperies and were tempted to stop, but made it to Moustache where we'd booked, and were glad: nice little restaurant with friendly staff and excellent food. And another couple of diners who looked so English when they walked in, crumpled and scruffy, that the waiter spoke to them in English, to their bemusement as they were French. Perfect proof of a theory I'm working on - more of that later.

Encore une fois à Paris.

Having emerged, finally, from the annual dark, deep, soul-sucking morass of preparing my tax return, with its habitual bitter self-recrimination and usual empty promises about doing better next time, it was a small but pleasing reward to fall upon this mille-feuille. It's not the real thing, but it's pretty close and, even more pleasing, it's a promise of better to come: this time next week I'll be in Paris.

This will  be my fourth? fifth? time there in the last four years, which is excellent going, even if they were all pretty fleeting visits. This one will be, too: a day and a half before setting off on an Avalon cruise down the Seine to Normandy and back again, and then off next morning on the train to London. Having done a Uniworld cruise along the Danube (sorry) in November, I'm keen to see how Avalon compares. I did have 5 days on the Panorama's maiden voyage, but that was some years ago now and really it was hard to judge the feel of the boat, given that everyone was new on board.

I do remember that the suite is bigger, and better arranged, so that you can lie in bed and look out of the huge window beyond your feet rather than craning your neck sideways. And yes, I do realise how decadent it is to be even giving thought to such things - but, you know, it's an industry that employs lots of people and makes an increasing amount of money for its investors, so it's not all self-indulgent frippery - it has economic value. (My attendance at this week's CLIA report meeting was not wasted.)

And it's also so very pleasant a way to travel. This time there will be Monet and Van Gogh, Napoleon and the Normandy landing beaches, and calvados. Plus wine and cheeses, pretty little towns, patisseries, cats, cafes and cathedrals. Excellent! Also, though, a grand finale Paris tour of all the usual suspects, which I now feel are sufficiently familiar not to need to see again - not quite so soon, anyway.

So I'm asking for advice here. Where and/or what is something a bit different, quirky possibly, interesting, colourful, which would give me something to talk (write) about? Come on, I know I have some regular French readers here. Break your silence! Please share your inside knowledge? Merci beaucoup.

Both larger than and as large as life

I'm always a sucker for my own hype, and having written recently for an airline magazine about the quirky and cultural joys of Wellington, I was pleased to be flying down there for a quick weekend break. The focus was to be WWI and specifically, of course, Gallipoli: opening just before Anzac Day, while I was in Turkey at the actual location, were a couple of exhibitions that really would have been fabulous preparation for that trip, had it been possible for me to visit them beforehand.

The first was at Te Papa, the National Museum, and it was the goal of many other people too, to see it. But staying just across the road at the very distinctive Museum Art Hotel (life-sized bull made of corned beef tins in the lobby, classic motorbikes there too, and many nude studies) meant we could get near the doors before they opened and the queues built up to over an hour. We all knew it would be worth it, though, because the marvellous Weta Workshop was deeply involved in the exhibits. The first thing you see is a wounded soldier, Lt Spencer Westmacott, in mid-shout as he lies on the ground, blood running from his shoulder down his right hand, gun transferred to his left, aiming at the enemy still, but now at the easier target of the torso rather than the head. It was his first and last day of the war.

Westmacott is unbelievably realistic - every hair on his stubbled chin, every drop of sweat, the despairingly determined expression in his eyes - and it's all the more overwhelming because the scale is 2.4 so he's huge, unavoidable, in full colour, right there. And so is his story, in voice-over and in words and pictures just beyond. It's a startling beginning, and the exhibition continues grabbing you by the throat all the way through. There are other larger-than-life mannequins, two of the saddest a doctor and a nurse, as well as a timeline along the floor that you follow, looking at real guns and uniforms and jam-tin bombs, studying a diorama of Quinn's Post, peering through a periscope, hearing the flies, skirting past latrines, sitting in Col William Malone's dugout and reading his last letter to his wife.

You soon get past marvelling at the artistry (moulds, casts, 3D printers, every hair, pore and wrinkle done by hand) and get fully immersed in the experience which is so vivid and immediate it doesn't feel like history. It's real - and unmissable. It's on till 2018. Go see it.