Au Revoir Paris

And so to our last day. We decided to go off and explore a market and get some goodies ot take back (cheese, Toulouson sausage, whatever we could really). So off we went to the Marche on Rue Moufetere in the 5th arrondissement. Then home (after a long delay waiting for one of the tour party who it later transpired had completely got the travel times wrong, and so missed not only the coach but the train as well).

Reflections on Paris - smaller, more well laid out and more spectacular than London, it is a beautiful city. Not one to live in I fear (it is almost impossible to buy and renting is inordinately expensive too - hence that large homeless population on all the streets), but worth repeated visits. The Metro is far better than the London Underground - easy to navigate, cheaper and overall more efficient.

The reputation for rudeness and pretending not to understand your French when it is obvious you are English that precede the Parisians was certinaly not proved to be true in our limited experience. Every Parisian we met was polite, most switched to English when they realised that we were not native speakers, and seemed to goout of thier way to be helpful and pleasant. Which suggests to us that a lot has to do with how we as Brits come over when we visit France (or any other country for that matter) - a willngess to learn and use the language and to try and understand the culture a bit seem to be appreciated wherever you travel to. Assuming that everyone speaks English is not only lazy but rude (even though you almost always can find someone who speaks some English wherever you travel - and I am not altogether sure how to take that, as a good or a bad thing).

Our love affair with France and the French goes on.

Two Go Mad in Paris, les troisiemme et parte final

And so to our last full day in Paris, and off to Montmartre to visit Le Basilique du Sacré-Cœur and the artists' quarter. We were really struck by Sacré-Cœur, not just because it is beautiful, but that it is very much a living church - built by the people of Paris as an act of penance after the Franco Prussian War and the insurrection by the Communards, and tied very much in with the history of the French involvement and suffering wars that ravaged Europe in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It is a place of prayer (constantly since before it was dedicated), and it felt a biut wrong to wander around it as a tourist attraction rather than appreciating it as a living place of prayer and worship, in this most secular or European nations.
It's a fair old walk up to the top, but we braced it and didn't wimp out by going up the funicular railway. It did mean that we missed grabbing a lunch before getting on the boats for a rather wet and uninspiring tour up the Seine in the driving rain. I think we both would rather have spent a bit more time in Montmartre. Mais, c'est la guerre.

We spent the afternoon souvenir shopping for the family at the Gallery Lafayette near the Opera House, which gave us yet another excuse to take dinner at Chartiers and explore some of the smaller galleries and shopping areas. We then got a final tour of Paris at night by coach the highlight of which was Le Tour Eiffel lit up at night!

Two Go Mad in Paris, parte deux

Sunday morning was taken up with a coach tour of all the sites in central Paris (a lot of which we had seen on foot the previous day, but it was nice to tour in comfort - we must be getting middle aged!)

We saw all the usual sites (including the French Statue of Liberty which is in the Seine not far from our hotel), grabbing a quick stop at the Hotel des Invalides before we decamped for the afternoon to Versailles, where the queues were so epic that we decided jut to tour the grounds rather than get inside the palace itself. A wise choice - it took all afternoon just to take in the amazing water gardens - and we didn't get much further than that (the grounds at Versailles go on literally for miles in every direction).

We chose not to pay a small fortune and take in a stage show in the evening, but instead took the Metro back in to town to see a closer hand the recently restored Opera House. Sadly no performances on Sunday, so we could not get inside - but the exterior was truly glorious.

Then off to a restuarant we had been reccomended at the bottom of Montmartre. Charties is a 130 seater restaurant, a bit away from the tourist circuit, and usually full to bursting by 7.30 (this is queue on our departure at 8.00). Good, basic French faire, noting haute about this cuisne - Touloson sausages, Provençal mushrooms, roast chicken, all served with pomme frites and washed down with a house wine that would not have disgraced any wine list. Finished off with ice cream profiteroles and hot chocolate sauce, then we rolled home on the Metro for a nite cap and a long sleep!!

Funny footnote - the Sunday evening TV showing was "Inspectuer Barnaby" - Midsummer Murders dubbed into French. Steve then saw the same episode in Romanian the following weekend in Cluj!!

Two Go Wild in Paris pt 1

Steve & Fi bought us a rather wonderful Christmas present last year; a weekend for two in Paris, travelling on the Eurostar (first class no less), while they baby sat for the weekend (brave and kind, but just a little foolish maybe?).

So it was that we were driven to Ashford to catch the 10:58, and enjoyed the luxury of first class travel all the way to Paris Gare du Norde. En route we were treated to breakfast that included Champaign (Debbi foolishly asked if it was little early in the day for Champagne, to which the steward wisely replied "eet eez neverr to early for Champagne". From that point on we knew we were living by French rules rather than English!

After being conducted to our hotel by our tour guides, we decamped at our four star hotel in Porte de Saint Cloud in the the 16th arrondissement.

We caught eh Metro back in to town in the afternoon to Hotel du Ville and visted Isle de La Cite, including Notre Dame, then back over Ille Dt. Louis and to the Marais where Steve wanted to visit the Shoa Memorial, but being Shabat, it was closed (d'oh). However the wall ot the Righteous of Nations (Mur Des Juste) outside the memorial that comemorates all the French who sheltered, rescued and evacuated Jews from under the noses of the Nazis, was truly moving - so many who stood up and risked their own lives to help their Jewish friends and neighbours!

After that sobering stop we walked up through the rush hour around the town hall and on to the Pompidou Centre (which is quite a bizzare structure!), on to Les Hailles and L'Elgise de Saint Eustance and on to le Palais de Louvre. Although we did not go in to the Louvre museum (it was late in the day), we did enjoy the stunning architecture and the grounds. We wandered from there over to the Rive Gauche and to a small (overpriced) bistro on the Boulevard Bonaparte in St. Germain for a well earned dinner. Then replete, tired and full of wine we headed back to the hotel for a long sleep.