Paris, France

Our breakfast of semolina pudding and amazing peaches was great, but we are missing a coffee making facility in our room. I really enjoy the Spanish and French peaches and nectarines which are so flavorsome, sweet and juicy like the ones dad used to grow. Its a pity run of the mill supermarket or Fruit and Vege market ones in NZ are not as good as Europe when really there is no reason why they shouldn’t be?

Despite the good down pour or two of rain last night today was very bright and warm – high 20’s to low 30’s and we set off at a relaxed pace to walk into (old) town via the pretty Luxembourg gardens. It has a variety of statues, plantings and leads up to the former palace which since the royals were done away with has served a number of functions such as the museum before the Louvre became the main art one, and now the west wing is the home of the President – guarded by serious, heavily armed guards. The park is greener than most Parisian ones we have seen but not in the region of the lovely English parks by any means. It also had very few (only one) coffee purchasing opportunities and it wasn’t long before I started to get a serious lack of caffeine headache. Being Sunday morning it was full of exercising folks. As well as lots of joggers there was a section under the trees with various Asian arts being practiced such as Tai Chi and another slow stick – fighting one I have not seen before. We admired the energy around us but were not inspired to join in especially as the day was proving very humid as well as warm.

Our walk was basically an exercise in getting lost and finding new things along the way in a purposeful manner as we find that this is where you can ‘get local’ as far as sight seeing goes for a change from hitting the tourist spots. Also as we have done most of the key tourist spots already on our last trip, we can relax a bit more for these few days in Paris. Not far out of the park we came across St Sulpice church which had a nice fountain/water feature in the foreground in front of a spectacular structure. We went inside for a little peak and were treated to a fantastic organ performance which had the audience giving a very loud and long standing ovation afterwards. I was wandering around doing a photo stake out and missed videoing the music – as it stopped just as I was about to record. I am normally not a fan of the organ, but this concert was very un-organ sounding – like a mini orchestra with a lead piano – until the end which finished in a very strong ‘Dracula’ organ style. It was really very interesting and beautiful – you can see from the photo what a huge instrument it is. The inside of the church was quite stark in a way but there was one impressive side worship area that had a 3 dimensional statue of Mary I think, and above that a dome which was painted in a powerful scene – also with a 3D almost translucent effect. My photo that is loaded up to this site really needs some post processing to show it off at its best, but you can get an idea of it – quite uncommon for what we have seen so far.

We walked a bit further where there were a lot of eateries, business district and shops that looked quite interesting. Had it not been Sunday and they been open it would have been a bit distracting! The area is called St. Germain and borders the Latin district (other end from where we are staying) of which I had no idea was so long/large. We passed by quite a few of eating places in search of coffee and lunch but it took us a while to settle on somewhere as they were either a bit boring, a bit expensive for what they were offering to the ridiculously out of our budget Michelin Star rated. We continued to enjoy our discovery through the lanes and streets finally finding a reasonably priced and interesting cafe in a little historic side lane, totally off the beaten track that you could easily miss.

We had a really good lunch of two courses for €17 each. Vern had French onion soup followed by a slow cooked lamb regional dish, and I had smoked duck breast, asparagus, poached egg, tomato coulis and salad, followed by beef bourginon (of course we swapped half way on most of it). The host was a friendly lively chap and I am not sure how it started but he asked where we were from saying I bet you are dutch – looking at me. I think I will take that as a compliment as I think they are a very good looking race and he wasn’t that far off really? When it came to guess his ethnicity we got it half right as he was half Italian and half Greek! As much as I like the French, it was easy to pick his very cheerful more outgoing personality as more typically Italian LOL. We also had a very good coffee which evened out our temperaments and sent the tension headache packing. On a food note, I have never tried smoked duck breast before and it was very nice – tender, moist and not too delicate or strong.

Onward from St Germain we arrived at the old Jewish quarter which flows on from it late afternoon – 3:30ish and had a meeting as to what to do next. We wanted to do the Eiffel Tower tonight, so as not to have a late night on our last night but we needed to go home to get the tripod for this. Given timings we headed for an old church which Rick Steves mentions in the Jewish quarter which has lovely glass that we missed last time. As it happens when I researched it afterwards we went to the wrong one, but lucky as they are very similar. The more spectacular was on the Isle de France (not far away, but across the river) and called St Chapelle – maybe that will be next time. Both are gothic in style, and have lots of tall narrow and colorful columns of glass. St. Severin; the one we visited had a lovely feel and is actually one of the oldest churches in Paris dating back to its beginnings in the 11th century. Most of the glass was added with additions in the 15th century. It also had a ‘newer’ meditative chapel/section which was quite minimalist with some great art by a famous artist. I also loved the old paintings that were on the walls themselves surrounding the glass. St. Severin is free to visit, whilst St. Chapelle has a fee – and large queues, so perhaps it wasn’t such a bad thing visiting this one, and as mentioned we will do Chapelle next time!

We headed home to get the tripod and grabbed a french hot dog (in the big slightly oval bread with cheesy mustard sauce) and chicken stuffed Fougasse (bread dough like calzone) before taking another train trip (and walk to and from the station) to the Eiffel Tower arriving at 7pm. As expected the train was pretty crowded heading that way, and the street towards the tower even more crowded. Some tourists go so slow its infuriating so we had to split from our usual holding hands and do a weave in and out to get passed the dawdlers. I would like to add I am pretty impressive at crowd weaving and leave Vernon for dust.

There was a pretty long line at the tower too – taking us an hour to get in and up to the 2nd level. There was an even longer wait – nearly another hour to get to the upper level as well. The tower was a real highlight for both of us last time – quite magical in fact, and this prompted us to visit it again – knowing full well about crowds and time consumption. This time whilst it was still an amazing feeling to be there and go up again it was not quite so magical second time around, which is perhaps to be expected. Vern felt it was well worth it and almost a necessity for a visit to Paris, however I could have given it a miss as I felt disappointed that I didn’t get the same buzz. I did still enjoy myself and it is like Vernon says a thing that epitomizes Paris but we spent more time waiting than doing and it ended up a very late night without the real romantic magic of the first love experience for me. One thing remains it is a stunning monument, and I do not get tired of gazing at the engineering beauty it is.

When we came down we walked across the bridge to get an place to set up the tripod and get a night shot. These also need a bit of processing but came out ok or so I thought until we walked around the other side of the river to go to the subway and I saw a far better, unobstructed angle a few hundred yards away from my other spot. I was tired and gutted as we did not have time to set up again as the subway was due to stop running very very soon and it was a LONG walk home at that time of morning (not to mention probably not the safest).

We walked as fast as our queue and tourist weary legs could manage and found a station that was just still open. We grabbed a train believing it to be the right one and once on it saw it was a number 8, not a number 10 as was required. Darn it – we hopped off at the next stop and waited for a train back to the station as that was the only point to catch a ’10’ which would take us to another station to then connect to our ‘home’ line. Ordinarily it would not be a big deal however the time was running out for catching trains. On the trains this time of night were a few entertainers – and on the first train there were two young men with a loud backing track player box who were rapping a popular song with some colourful language in the chorus. Other travelers on our carriage were young ladies out and about on a night out and they joined in the very lively and colourful song. It was a load of fun to see them dancing and singing – they joys of youth and night life in Paris! The second carriage had an accordion player who was also of a good caliber.

When we finally got to our home station it was security gated on the outside to stop any overnighters – and clearly we were on the last train! That was a bit of a relief. We also found out how come we got on the wrong train – we were the right platform but at that time and station two different numbers were going from the same platform, same side. One to watch out for in future!

On our walk home through our end of the ‘Latin Quarter’ there were still a reasonable number of diners and drinkers at 1:30am enjoying themselves in a very relaxed and non threatening manner – typical of a big city that I guess ‘never sleeps’. It was just about 2am by the time we hit the pillows after our very big day, thinking of a nice sleep in ahead of our last day in Paris.