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France At Home – the Francophile Supermarket in Australia

Packets of pasta, biscuits and French groceries

France At Home - the Francophile supermarket in Australia

This weekend at home in Australia, my family and I have been eating some of our favourite French foods and my adult kids and husband couldn't be happier. In case you don't already know, we live in Newcastle, Australia and have a second home in Brittany, France where we spend extended time each year. One of the things we love about that, is experiencing everyday life in our own home like gardening, going to fresh food markets, visiting friends and of course regularly going to the supermarché (supermarket) just like our Breton neighbours.

Supermarché shopping has always been fun as we go about filling our trolley with new and different French brands that we happily try out. Grocery shopping in France has always felt like an adventure as we indulge our taste buds to the max! We've grown used to our favourite brands over the years and we love to stock our fridge and pantry with foods we can't buy in Australia.

What I’m Loving This Week 41 Year 2026

What I'm Loving text with the booksellers along the Seine River, Paris

Another week, and another chance to share with you some articles, information and stories that I'm sure you'll love. Welcome to a fabulous What I'm Loving This Week.

What I’m Loving This Week 40 Year 2026

What I'm Loving This Week with bright flower bunches at French weekly market

Hello beautiful people, here's to another week of links I think you'll like. First we go to the cinema. There's something special about snuggling into a cosy soft large seat before a huge screen and being transported to faraway places, into different lives and social realms, even into the imaginable make-believe world, sometimes dreaming of who or what we might have done, or who'd we might have become. Inserting ourselves into the world of cinema is a glorious thing.

Château de Kergrist – How to Tour the Château and Gardens

Large turreted chateau with ivy on walls

Château de Kergrist - How to Tour the Château and Gardens

Château de Kergrist is a hidden gem in the Trégor Valley close to Ploubezre in the Côtes-d’Armor department of Brittany. It was on a warm summer’s day that I took a day trip to visit the beautiful and lovingly preserved Château de Kergrist and garden complex. Château de Kergrist at Ploubezre is just 8 kilometres from Lannion and tucked into a sheltered area near the River Léguer.

Walking in the Footsteps of F Scott Fitzgerald

Susan McDonald, author of The Lost Children, loves visiting France for research for her books. Just earlier this year, Susan once again spent time in the South of France researching for her next book and enjoying the best of France mid-year. Her travels during summer followed in the footsteps of F Scott Fitzgerald, and lucky for us, Susan has shared this summer travel adventure with us.

Walking in the Footsteps of F Scott Fitzgerald by Susan MacDonald

It was one hundred years ago, May 1926 when Sarah Murphy, wife to the heir of a leather manufacturing company, convinced Cap Eden Roc Hotel to remain open for the summer for their friends.

The summer season in La Côte d’Azur was born. To commemorate this little known fact, I took a small apartment on Cap d’Antibes for the weekend this May, 2026.

Notre-Dame de Paris Restoration Photos

Notre-Dame de Paris with scaffolding over it

Notre Dame de Paris - Repair work - Photo taken August 2017 from Arab World Institute rooftop balcony

Notre-Dame de Paris Restoration Photos

Notre-Dame de Paris is one of those places you dream of visiting and standing in front of when planning a trip to the city of Paris. No trip to Paris should be without a visit to this show-stopping medieval wonder. Often referred to simply as Notre-Dame, it's a Catholic cathedral on the Île de la Cité, in the 4th arrondissement (one of the two islands in the middle of the Seine River in the centre of the city).

Unless you've been living on another planet, you'll have heard about the catastrophic fire that destroyed the cathedral in April 2019. On my visits into Paris I've watched the repair work that was being carried out in 2017 with the scaffolding engulfing part of the cathedral, then I was personally visiting the cathedral just one hour prior to the breakout of the April 2019 fire, and also over the next five years on different occasions I've walked as close as possible to the worksite as the major fire-damaged cathedral was undergoing its major restoration.

What I’m Loving This Week 38 Year 2026

Bonjour and welcome to What I'm Loving This Week. Here's an autumn photo I took last year as I was sitting at Café Le Bonaparte in Saint-Germain-des-Prés on the Left Bank. Café Le Bonaparte is a cosy cafe with a bright red, blue and white striped awning diagonally opposite the Saint-Germain des Pres Church.

Paris Catacombs – A World Beneath the City

Paris Catacombs - A World Beneath the City

There is a world beneath the city of Paris and it includes the Paris Catacombs which houses one of the world's largest ossuaries. An ossuary can be a small chest or box, a building, or a dedicated site used as the final resting place for human skeletal remains. The Paris Catacombs are just part of the underground world of Paris which includes subterranean Métro tunnels, sewers, and the deepest of all, a network of abandoned quarries. It is part of the these underground quarries that contain the famous ossuary, Le Catacombes de Paris (the Paris Catacombs).