PARIS 2: We spent two days in Paris, and for the second day I went to the Musée D'Orsay, famous for its collection of Impressionist painting. It's a beautiful museum, and much less intimidating than the Louvre!I love Art Nouveau! There's just something about it that I find appealing, and they had a big section of it in the museum. I want this bed! A view from the first level of the museum: it used to be a train station in 1900!A giant clock from the inside


Van Gogh's self portraitMonet Degas Seb beside the Seine

The Sorbonne University in the Latin Quarter

The Pantheon, a mausoleum containing the tombs of Voltaire, Victor Hugo, Emile Zola and Marie Curie. A gigantic scary looking building to me!

SUNSETS & PARIS 1: Yep, back to Paris again! It doesn't ever get boring though or less breathtaking, just like some of the amazing sunsets I've been seeing lately. Beautiful segway there...

Chateau de Menthon, near Annecy's lake

The moon coming up at La Jairaz

The sunset and a contrail in Annecy

This is my favourite one! The colour of it was incredible, all pinks purples and oranges

The Pont de Alexandre III, with Les Invalides in the background

One of the pillars at the start of the bridge

One of the lamp posts, with the Eiffel tower through the fog! Everything, even fog, looks nice in this city!

Le Petit Palais, just off the Champs Elysées, were they hold exhibitions and art shows

Les Jardins des Plantes, one of the botanical gardens of Paris

The gardens had a dragon in them for some reason!

AUTUMN: Some of the photos I've taken of the colours of the leaves, everything is so pretty this time of year!

Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris

The yellow leaves in Arras

The mountains near Seb's grandma's house in La Jairaz, the colours are stunning!

I love the yellows!

Along the Seine in Paris

In the Jardin des Plantes in Paris, the red ones are my favourite

Purple ones next to the Seine

More yellow...

And lovely orange ones in the Jardin des Plantes

SOMME: For my last day in Arras I went on a tour of the Battle of the Somme area with an extremely passionate Scotsman named Ian who came tearing into the youth hostel in his kilt to find me, much to the bemusement of everyone else! La Grande Mine, a huge crater that was made when Allied soldiers tunnelled towards the German trenches and planted a massive amount of explosives What the Somme looks like today, basically unchanged since the war, apart from the fact that the fields are farmed and everything has regrown. Ian told us that every week the council sends a truck past all the farms to pick up all the shrapnel, old weapons and barbed wire that still comes up from the fields
Pozières cemetery. There are hundreds of these cemeteries across the Somme and it really is horrific how huge the loss of life was. It's hard to imagine the scale of it until you see all these cemeteries with the thousands upon thousands of headstones, many of which are dedicated to missing soldiers whose bodies were never found
It's a strange sensation to see the ANZAC symbol and Australian flags so far away from home. It's definitely the case that what soldiers from other countries (like Australia, NZ, the UK, India, Canada, South Africa etc) did during the war has not been forgotten. The road that this memorial was located on was called Rue d'Australie!
Thiepval Memorial, dedicated to the missing soldiers. It's horrific how large it is and how many names are on its walls. Even today though, remains keep surfacing from under the ground due to construction or the natural movement of the earth, and they remove that person's name from Thiepval if they can identify them Poppies on the memorial at Thiepval
A picture of soldiers in the trenches, I can't imagine how horrible it would have been during winter with all the mud and the freezing temperaturesThe Ulster memorial to Northern Irish soldiers
The Newfoundland memorial at Beaumont Hamel

Trenches at Beaumont Hamel, it's hard to imagine them as they were, quite a bit deeper and obviously with no grass. There aren't many places left where you can see original trenches though, and it was fascinating to see them up close

ARRAS 2: After wandering on the outskirts of town where the Fauborg d'Amiens cemetery and the citadel were, I headed back into the centre to visit the fine arts museum and - what a surprise - head up to the top of another tower (using an elevator this time)

Gardens in the courtyard of the musuem A mosaic in the museum; can't imagine piecing it all back together. Like a big jigsaw puzzle!

The foyer of the museum; the lion used to be on the top of the Hotel de Ville

A balcony in the museum, I want this in my house! Ha dream on...

A photo of Arras' cathedral after bombing during WWII

The Grand Place with its fantastic Flemish buildings, never seen anything like them before
A closeup on the buildings (the shabby looking brown one in the middle is the youth hostel I stayed in)The Hotel de Ville, it has lots of gold on it that looks spectacular in the sunshine The view from the top of the Hotel de Ville
Gargoyles, they're everywhere

The Hotel de Ville lit up at night. I think Arras is at its best at nighttime

ARRAS 1: After my fantastic few days in Paris, I headed further north to Arras, specifically because it is close to the Somme, the area where heavy fighting took place in WWII. Not a happy place to visit but very important The Grand Place of Arras lit up at night
According to Lonely Planet, there are over 300 of these "giants" all over northern France! They have names, children, get married, grow up, and come out for festivals and feast days. They're also in Spain, the Austrian Tyrol, Mexico, Brazil, India and Belgium. Bizarre but I love things like this! These three are Jacqueline, Colas and their son Dédé
Steps leading up from Arras' souterrains or boves (underground cellars and caves that are under the town hall and main square)
The caves were used as a giant barracks and base during the war (thousands of soldiers lived in them and they were the launching point for a surprise attack on the Germans who didn't know they were down there), and were partly excavated by New Zealand soldiers. There were lots of NZ things like badges and flags, strange to see those things so far from NZ!
Faubourg d'Amiens cemetery in Arras; a British war cemetery. All of these places overwhelm me because of the sheer number of headstones
A memorial in the cemetery to the Royal Flying Corps, including some Australians, New Zealanders and South Africans
The foyer of the Hotel de Ville, I love the arches

The walls of Arras' 17th century citadel

Le Mur des Fusillés (Firing Squad wall), on the outside of the citadel. 218 members of the French resistance were shot here during the second world war