Paris was le magnifique (translation? Paris was bloody brilliant)! What a beautiful city and so clean too. Such a contrast to London (although we love London too). Loges and I both agreed that you can't help but admire the Frog's patrionism and pride that they take in their country. It truly is a very romantic and fascinating place.
We had a very early start on Saturday with a 6.30am Eurostar (train) departure from London Waterloo. We travelled in Business Premium which definitely took the sting off the early rise bit. Train is a very scenic way to do it, I would even go as far as saying that I prefer it over flying. Paris is only 2h 50m away, how cool is that! It's like driving to Byron.....at the safe speed of 90km per hour which I never go over (honest Mum and Dad!)........ anyway think that this timing is very civil. We sat in comfort eating our cooked breakfast whilst the beautiful English and then French countryside rolled by. It was a fairly grey day but none the less the scenery was still fabulous. All so green and lush.
We arrived in Paris at Gard de Nord station at around 10.30am where our adventure immediately began with us trying to decipher the French Metro and Railway systems. All very challenging when the signage is all written in French. I mean how dare they use their national language on their signage. Bloody rude French ha ha ha!
Amazingly we managed to navigate ourselves in the right direction on our first attempt and arrived in the Tuileries about 15 minutes later. As soon as you walk out of the station onto the street your breath is immediately taken away by the sheer beauty of your surroundings. It might've also been the sight of the Cartier shop sign too :-) Anyway moving right along for those of you who have not been to Paris the Tuileries is located very close to The Louvre, Champs d Elysees, Arc de Triomphe, of course the amazing Eiffel Tower, in fact to most of the major attractions in Paris. It is also where alot of the exclusive shopping (window in my case) is located and the famous Ritz Hotel.
Our accommodation was located in the Tuileries, and was aptly called "The Tuileries Hotel" however as the saying goes "it aint the Ritz"! Our room was typically European, it was tiny tiny tiny and actually made our place in London seem like a penthouse. In saying this it was everything we needed. It was cosy, very clean and most of all extremely well located.
After dropping our bags off at our hotel it was straight back out on the streets to start our sightseeing. First stop was the Louvre for a couple of Kodak moments.
Even on a cold and very wet day the crowd here was still phenominal. We decided that we would leave The Louvre as our last stop for the day so continued on to Notre Dame.
It was exactly 12 noon when we were walking up to the cathedral so the famous bell was ringing loud and clear. Me being the extremely funny person I am immediately asked Loges if the Hunchback was up there ringing it to which his response was "you know you're more like your Father than you think" (thanks Dad!).
Yes we actually plucked up the courage to go inside even though walking into a church is always risky for us. In fact I really related to Joan of Arc's shrine when I came across it cos I really felt like I was going to burst into flames at any moment. Seriously though it truly is a magnificent structure. Despite the pushing and shoving from fellow tourists we really enjoyed our time there.
After Notre Dame it was chow down time so we navigated our way to the Latin Quarter. Mate if you can't find a cafe, restaurant or bar that suits here well you deserve to starve. You name the cuisine or the cocktail and it'll be available here. Chevvy there was this great kebab shop there that actually had chips as one of the ingredients in the kebab! How cool would that be if we had a place like that after one of our nights out on the sherbets! Bugger off Macca's buffet I say! I didn't actually try one but jeez they looked good. Loges and I ended up in this very cute little Italian cafe where we enjoyed yummy pizza and our first bottle of French red wine (Bordeaux).
After a leisurely lunch it was then back to The Louvre. Of course our first stop was the Mona Lisa. Unlike what alot of people say it was actually bigger than I had imagined it would be. I think after hearing people say how much smaller it was than they expected I went in with the belief it was going to be about A4 size which it of course wasn't. After the Mona Lisa we spent the next two hours or so browsing through the many different galleries. After the Louvre it was back to our hotel for a freshen up and to get ready for dinner.
We had received a couple of very good local French restaurant recommendations from Melissa (Tooms) and Matt so set out to give them a try. Well bless the very unpredictable French cos we tried two out of the three recommendations and both were unbelievably shut! On a Saturday night! By the time we discovered the second restaurant closed it was 9.30pm and Loges was starting to delicately gnaw his arm off so we agreed that we would perhaps not try our luck on the 3rd restaurant and made a bee line back to the Latin Quarter.
Our dinner adventure ended well cos we ended up going to this tiny little French Fondue restaurant which was loads of fun. We were the only non-French people in there which made us entertainment for the regulars (which I think most of them were) whilst we gave it our best shot. Well we must have done okay cos none of them were rolling around on the floor laughing uncontrollably at anytime, or perhaps they were just polite.
Day two started off with a trip to the Catacombes. The long story short is that back in the 1800s the cemeteries were becoming overcrowded and as a result the current dead of the day were being buried alot nearer to the ground surface. Problem was that many rife diseases were causing a higher death rate and because the dead weren't being buried deep enough it was causing the disease to spread even further. To fix the problem they decided to exhume the long buried bodies (or bones) and move them to one of the disused mines that were located 20 metres below the surface of central Paris. Initially the bones were thrown at random into what was now called the Catacombes. They're not quite sure who made the call but out of respect for the dead it was later decided to arrange the bones in a more artistic manor. Here's what they ended up with:
This was just a small section of what turned out to be tunnels and tunnels and walls and walls of the same thing. Loges was quite intrigued by it all but I found it very eerie and even disturbing. We were 20 metres below the surface in very dark and narrow tunnels with walls like this on either side. I almost felt like we were intruding. Very strange feeling that I'm not keen to revisit.
So after our experience to the Catacombes we were both ready for a big pick me up and what better way to do that than a visit to Paris' most iconic attraction the Eiffel Tower. It was a very rainy, windy and cold day on our first day so we were very relieved that day two, our Eiffel Tower day, was bright, sunny and clear albeit a little on the chilly side but who cares. Anyway after 2 hours lining up to get tickets up we went to level two of this amazing structure. Think I'll let the pictures tell you the rest of the story here :-)
It was absolutely freezing up there but it didn't stop us from spending a good solid hour an a half up there just taking in the very spectacular view. Bloody lovely!
By the time we came down the Eiffel Tower it was getting late so we decided to take a stroll up to the Arc de Triomphe and start to make our way back to our hotel down the Champs d Elysees taking in all the activity on the way.
Tonight we were off too.......
WOW! What a fantastic show. So much going on, so many spectacular costumes, so much colour and glitter. No words can really describe Moulin Rouge, it really is something that you have to experience yourself. Even Loges really enjoyed it as did pretty much all the blokes in the
1000 strong audience. Hmmmmmmm wonder if it was for the artistic qualities or perhaps because there was alot of skin happening on that stage. No I'd say definitely the artistic qualities :-/
Day three we decided that it would be our taking in Paris day where we'd just wander the streets taking in the atmosphere, oh yeah and trying some of the Parisian delights such as pastries and baguettes. Our first task of the day was to check out the infamous Alexander III Bridge which is Paris' most decorative bridge. I'm not 100% sure of this (someone may have to shed some light) but I think it was also the rendezvous point where Carrie Bradshaw and Mr Big finally admitted they were meant to be in the final show of Sex and the City. Regardless of whether this is true or not Loges and I decided it was so stole a little kiss when we were there. Awwwwww I hear you all say.
We decided that this would be our day to make a stop at the Arc de Triomphe also. Big bonus was that whilst we were there we witnessed a bingle on the mad roundabout which supposedly happens approximately every 12 minutes or so. We were there for longer than that and didn't see any further mishaps but perhaps they were on the other the side to where we were.
As you can see we had perfect weather which fit in perfectly with our plans. After visiting the Arc de Triomphe it was time to start making our way towards our hotel to pick up our bags and head to catch the train back to London.
We decided that on the way we'd pop into a little patisserie we'd seen the day before to grab some little treats. Now you would think from my French intro to this chapter that Loges and I are fluent in French.......alright alright alright not that easily fooled hey. You'd actually be right in saying that our grasp of the French language actually sucked big time and this could not have become more obvious than on our little food trip heading back to the hotel. Loges was very brave and stepped forward to make our order in the patisserie however seemed to break more into Spanish than he did French which I thought was hilarious but obviously the little French man behind the counter didn't cos we didn't quite end up with what we ordered. We did get the vanilla slice but unfortunately instead of the chocolate eclair (that I'd been looking forward to our whole trip) we ended up with a coffee one. Oh well all part of the experience. Next it was time to pick up a baguette along the Champs d Elysees and it was now my turn to attempt to order. I had a great start with "Bonjour", but then went downhill from here with me saying "can I make a take away order", hmmmmm not good. Anyway I made a fair recovery by actually pronouncing (by fluke only) the baguettes we wanted correctly. Phew very stressful but hilarious at the same time.
So food now purchased we then found a nice spot in one of the many parks in the area and enjoyed a late picnic lunch. After lunch there was time for one last gaze up the Champs d Elysees
before heading to the train station to catch the Eurostar back to London which this time was made very comfortable with a hot meal but more importantly free flowing champagne all the way. Not sure whether the very academic couple who sat next to us, who did number puzzles all the way home, quite enjoyed it as much as we did though he he he he.So now it's back to reality. I have an interview tomorrow with a recruitment company to have a chat to them about job prospects. Having become very accustomed to being a lady of leisure I've decided to ease my way back into the workforce by doing temp work to start and then maybe looking at something a bit more permanent down the track. As long as I'm getting okay dosh we'll be happy.
Anyway all hope you enjoyed our Paris chapter. Next on the agenda is Bruges in Belgium for Easter. Mmmmmmmm chocolate and beer!
Take care, til next time!
