Le Havre

One weekend, I decided to take the train to Le Havre, as I particularly wanted to visit Musée Malraux, an art gallery with many impressionist paintings.

The gallery is right by the ocean and has glass walls so you can see the sea, which makes it a really nice setting. Another advantage is that it's not too busy, unlike other galleries I've visited over the last year, such as Musée d'Orsay and the Uffizi gallery. I enjoyed looking at the impressionist paintings in the permanent collection, and also the exhibition that was taking place at the time (Né(e)s de l'écume et des rêves), an art collection inspired by the sea.

Afterwards, I explored the city, which was mostly destroyed during World War Two and rebuilt in the years that followed.

Buildings I saw included St. Joseph's Church...

...the cathedral...                                 

...and the city hall.

Before going back, I went for a ride on the funicular railway. There are very good views from the top. It made me think of Valparaíso!

I found Le Havre to be a really interesting place for a day out, especially for people who like art.

One of the good things about being based in Rouen is that it's easy to get to other nearby cities on the train. Le Havre is 50 minutes away, and Paris St. Lazare is about an hour and a half away. The closest city is Dieppe, which takes 45 minutes to get to. And that's where I went next!

Étretat

I hadn't heard of it before, but Étretat is one of the most famous touristic towns in Normandy. I went there the weekend I arrived in Rouen.

It's known for its cliffs with natural arches, which have been painted by several famous artists. The best way to see them is to climb up a small hill. The views are amazing.

Only a short post today, but the next one (about Le Havre) will be longer!

Rouen

So eventually I ended up in Rouen for the last five weeks of my Year Abroad. I did three different placements during that time - two weeks of work experience at a vet, one week of work experience in a cat café, and two weeks at a language school. It was fun to do three very different things in a short space of time. I particularly liked working at the vets, as I learnt a lot there. I got to see various surgeries carried out, which was really interesting. Working in the café wasn't quite as exciting, but it was lovely to be surrounded by adorable cats all day!

The centre of Rouen is very historic and picturesque. However, the city's not really that different from towns in England, so it felt much less exotic in comparison to other places I've seen on the Year Abroad. But overall, I enjoyed my time there.

Here are some of my favourite parts of the city:

Le Gros-Horloge

Jardin des Plantes

Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Rouen (Every night during the summer, two short films are projected onto the wall of the cathedral, which is when I took these pictures. It's really impressive and definitely worth seeing!)

Square Verdrel

Place du Vieux-Marché (This is where Joan of Arc was burned at the stake.)

Church of Saint-Maclou

Passage de la Petite Horloge

Tour Jeanne-d'Arc (This is where Joan of Arc was imprisoned. It used to be part of a castle, but now just this tower remains.)

Rouen wouldn't have been my first choice of city to spend the majority of the French part of my Year Abroad in. But although I preferred Montpellier and the south of France, I still liked being here. It's a city with a lot of history and culture.

I also visited a few other towns and cities in Normandy, and there will be short posts about them coming very soon!

My Last Five Weeks in Kärnten

I've just finished the last five weeks of my assistantship and it feels strange that it's over. There were a lot of things to do after the Christmas holidays, so I didn't have time to take any trips outside of Kärnten, the region of Austria where I was working. However, I did do some more travelling around locally and saw some really nice places. Photos below!

The Amthof and tourist information centre in the town where I was living, Feldkirchen in Kärnten

The lake and castle at Velden am Wörthersee

Villach

Burg Hochosterwitz (This was so impressive to look at, but unfortunately my pictures did not come out well!)

Burg Landskron (my photos didn't really do it justice either)

So now my time in Austria is over and I'm about halfway through my Year Abroad! Doing the teaching assistantship has been a really interesting and useful experience. I'd never had a "proper job" before and I was very nervous before starting work, but I've grown in confidence over the course of the last few months. My German has also improved a lot - I'm not fluent, but I feel much more comfortable speaking now than I did when I first arrived in Austria in September barely able to string two words together!

In a few days time I am off to Chile, where I will be studying at a university. It will be my first time in South America and I'm really really excited! I hope to do a lot of travelling around the country while I'm there, which I will document here on this blog. :)

Back to Italy Again (Venice)

For the final trip away I took during my time as an English Language Assistant, I went back to Italy again, this time to Venice. Even though it was so easy to get to (there is a direct train from Villach), I had put off going there for a while as I was worried it would be really expensive. However, I found out it that if you stay on the mainland, near Venezia Mestre train station, it's actually quite affordable. Not the nicest area, but fine as long as you don't go out at night!

Venice, like Florence, was a place I'd wanted to see for a long time. And it really was as beautiful as people say it is. The downside was that it was extremely busy, especially around the most touristic places. It was only mid December when I went, so I definitely would not want to go there in the summer or the carnival season!

Even with Google Maps, I got very lost a couple of times, but I eventually managed to see all the main sites and take some pictures. Here they are:

The views you see when you first come out of Venezia Santa Lucia train station. Amazing!

I Frari

Ponte Rialto

Hard to see here, but it's a cool sculpture of a pair of hands on a building.

Basilica di San Marco

Piazza San Marco

Palazzo Ducale

Ponte dei Sospiri

A couple of islands you can see across the canal from outside Palazzo Ducale. Unfortunately I didn't have time to visit them in December, but maybe I will go back to Venice in the future and look round them then.


It is funny how I have ended up spending so much time in Italy during the German-speaking part of my Year Abroad. I had only been there once before, having spent a few hours in San Remo when I was fifteen and on holiday in the south of France. So it was great to explore the country more and see a couple of famous cities. There are lots of other places there that I want to go to in the future, Rome most of all.

I also started learning the Italian language in October before going to Udine, and I am finding it really interesting. Maybe it wasn't a great idea to start learning a new language when I'm already studying three, but I feel I have to finish the Duolingo Italian course now that I've started it!

I went home for Christmas a couple of weeks after my Venice trip and then came back to Austria in the new year for the last five weeks of my assistantship. I was too busy to take any trips away during that time, but I did do quite a lot of sightseeing around Kärnten. So that's what my next post will be about!