France
Canal Saint-Martin

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    • Day 4

      Pinch me moments from Paris

      September 8, 2023 in France ⋅ ☀️ 32 °C

      My pinch me moments from Paris were -
      Seeing the amazing architecture - it's everywhere
      Going to the Louvre
      Cycling from the Arc de Triomphe down the Champs-élysées
      Croissant making
      Travelling on the Seine & been surrounded by the history - quite mind-blowing.Read more

    • Day 86

      Back to Paris

      October 23, 2021 in France ⋅ 🌙 9 °C

      This will be short as it’s 9.50 pm and I feel spaced as didn’t sleep well last night…prob because alarm set for 6, and I read and finished a book - usually reading sends me to sleep, but this time I got all hyped…anyway, didn’t feel too fussed as we sat for 4 hours on a TGV hurtling back to Paris from Bayonne. It was crowded, the usual fight to get bags in the luggage racks, children running round and babies objecting…Saturday, and everyone going to Paris. Actually many got off at Bordeaux, but then many more boarded and filled in all the gaps.

      We thought it was going to be colder, but it was a pleasant, not uncomfortably cold, and sunny. But the main thing that was striking since we were here about 2 months ago - it is crowded, vibrant and like the Paris we knew. Last week in august was so quiet, almost spooky - and maybe it was partly the covid effect, but Parisians famously leave Paris in August, so that may have been part of it, and there were very few visible tourists then. But now so different - we hear English spoken everywhere, the Americans are coming back, and the English, and some Asians…(didn’t see other Australians)…it was back to fighting not to bump into people walking along the street.

      So once checked into our hotel near the Gare de Lyon, we marched out and walked up through the Ile St Louis where Amr had booked a restaurant for tonight. Looked great, and we went on looked into Samaritaine and Galeries Lafayette, Amr bought some Mariage Frères tea, and we generally had fun. Stopped for a mint tea/coffee at our favourite place near l’Opera (where Omnia and we took Cami and James for dinner in 2015)…and then walked back to the restaurant. Quite a lot of walking I think…just checked my Apple Watch and we walked about 15 kms! Just keeping the legs ready and well.

      Had a fab dinner at Les Fous de l’Ile, French food done really well…I had butternut and chestnut soup and calf’s liver and Amr had mackerel marinated in milk followed by octopus with beans. And a Sancerre Pinot…beside us were 2 gay guys, who brought their little dog (a Nico type I think..I.e. breed, not behaviour - so often people here bring their little dogs to restaurants, and they seem to know how to behave! You wouldn’t know they are there…I had one cuddled up next to me while having my tea…(not Rogers or Normans!)…we chatted to the guys and the waitress who had recently been working in NZ, but didn’t go to Oz in case she couldn’t get out…anyway, a good day, and am now crashing…
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    • Day 87

      Perfect Paris day

      October 24, 2021 in France ⋅ ⛅ 8 °C

      Today was cold but cloudless, just sparkling. A week ago I looked at the weather predictions for Paris and it looked like a week of rain…I don’t know why they bother to do the 10 day forecasts as they are always inaccurate, if not totally wrong! Anyway, we leisurely set off, had fresh OJ at the supermarket nearby where you can get your own juice from a machine that does it while you press the button. Then a cafe for coffee and croissants, and we were ready to face the world.

      Amr wanted to visit the French resistance memorial at Mont-Valérien (with Hartley in mind) …so we had a bit of an adventure finding our way there as it’s outside the main centre…we got a train on the line towards Versailles. It was a nice suburban area, and we climbed a hill (that is the Mont part) and from the park at the top it was worth the trip just for the view! The Eiffel Tower, Sacré Coeur all in the distance, a huge panorama. There is an American memorial and cemetery there, mainly for WWI, and then went round to the French memorial which is in the fortress and is for the internees and resistance fighters who were executed there by the Nazis. Found you need to have a guided tour to actually go inside, and none available today, but we were content to walk round the outside.

      Got a direct train back to Gare St Lazare and walked back via La Madeleine which is again surrounded with scaffolding (don’t know why - last time it was beautifully cleaned and gorgeous…anyway we did go inside, lit a candle for Ira and listened to a choir practising…and I knew it was familiar, something I had sung in ChorusOz - and we found that there was a concert of Brahms German Requiem today at 4 pm, entrée libre. So we went and had a patisserie - a quiche actually, and then went to our favourite cafe for a chocolate and Amr had a glass of wine, then went back, via a look into Galeries Lafayette, to the Madeleine for the concert. It turned out to be excerpts from the Requiem, not a performance of the whole work, and was with an organ rather than orchestra, which with acoustics made it harder to hear the singing clearly, but beautiful nevertheless.

      Then we started back to the hotel as Omnia was arriving..landed about 5, and we aimed to be back by 7 as she had to get through passport control and get the train etc…so we walked through the Tuileries and along, past a Tour St Jacques on Rue de Rivoli down near Hôtel de Ville, all about the pilgrimages and may go back and have a tour of that as we feel rather bonded with st Jacques!

      Then Omnia arrived, lovely to reunite after such a long enforced interval. We all walked to Bastille and had dinner at a brasserie there, just lovely. Now off to bed…Louvre tomorrow and dinner at Bofinger.
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    • Day 88

      Another busy Paris day

      October 25, 2021 in France ⋅ ⛅ 11 °C

      Now 10.45, very late to try and write and remember all that we did. But Amr has a busy schedule for us, and it has been fab. After yesterday’s perfect weather we woke to rain…as predicted, and also as predicted it stopped by 9.30 and cleared up this afternoon and the sun even peeped out…

      Today was Louvre day. We were booked in at 11.30, nice and leisurely after breakfast, and with e tickets no problem getting in…quite a crowd gathering and queues etc, but maybe they didn’t have tickets. But the Louvre is always a challenge, it gets so complicated finding a specific area, and not getting lost, and even finding the sortie when you finally want to escape!! But we had several hours of fun, looking at the wonderful exhibits, and it was quite challenging with mask wearing obligatoire. After 3 or 4 hours it is enough…

      We went out and had a coffee break (we had a light lunch in the museum) at our coffee shop next to the opera, went to the Apple Store (of course) to get cables for charging Apple watches, went to a watch shop on rue Royale to get a new watch of Amr’s have it’s strap adjusted to fit his wrist…then we walked a bit and got the metro back…except there was a problem and we all had to get out at Châtelet…so we opted to surface rather than fight the crowds in the very complicated area under Châtelet and ended up walking back to our hotel near Gare de Lyon - so good exercise for us all…in fact in total we have had almost a camino day!

      Because we also walked, after a short respite and dressing up, to our dinner tonight at Bofinger. It is a wonderful restaurant that we have been to before, totally booked and buzzing on a Monday night, near Bastille. Wonderful meal, fun neighbours as you are all crowded together and can’t help hearing their conversation and seeing their dinner choices. It specialises in food from Alsace, but lots of other choices…I had kidneys, Amr had choucroute of seafood and Omnia had a pike dish…all very happy. It is a busy life! Tomorrow is the Musée d’Orsay I think…
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    • Day 89

      Musée d’Orsay and more

      October 26, 2021 in France ⋅ ☁️ 12 °C

      First I have to say how good it is to spend time with Omnia. This is the first time she has been let loose after all the lockdown time the UK had, and she was basically on her own…so it is extra good that we can all enjoy out time here together. We have quite often met her here, so we know what we all enjoy. She spent the lockdown keeping fit, and could probably outwalk us!

      Today was partly cloudy, cool and lovely. We got the metro into the Louvre stop and walked leisurely over the bridge to the musée and again had no trouble with queues with our online tickets. Much more relaxing than the Louvre as it is easier to get around and not get lost. Enjoyed the wonderful art and lasted till about 2.30 when we exited and went to a nearby brasserie for a light lunch and a sit down!

      Then we headed over to the shopping area…spent time in UniQlo …I wasn’t tempted, too crowded and nothing I couldn’t live without, and it is so stifling in masks…had a drink at our usual cafe - they know us now, and we don’t need to show out Oz covid certificate! Now getting ready to set off to dinner at Chez Denise, one of our very favourite places!

      Well, just back from Chez Denise, and it never lets us down…it was wonderful…can’t describe adequately the vibe and fun people have there. The food is wonderful - and abundant! We know to order one entrée and one main to share (and even then Amr has to eat more than 50% of it!)…the waiters are funny and relaxed and it is noisy…you get a litre of wine (red or white) and pay for how much you drink. You can get proper labelled bottles etc, but the house wine is good and quaffable so that’s what we do. Omnia had a leek entrée and a salmon main which was excellent, and Amr and I shared half a chicken and some mash that rivals Paul’s. We started with the chef’s terrine. And we all shared a crème caramel…it is another place where you are close to your neighbours and chat about the food and whatever comes up. It is always full..the table near us that is empty was booked for 9pm. We were amazed watching people demolish their enormous plates of food!! We always come there and I think we always will when in Paris! Now off to bed.
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    • Day 91

      Another cloudless day in Paris

      October 28, 2021 in France ⋅ 🌙 16 °C

      This can’t continue…it has been a beautiful day again. We had our last museum day - the Musée des arts décoratifs. Got there early - found our tickets were for 11 o’clock, so we again wandered to Concorde and relaxed in the sun till it was time. The museum had a special exhibit on Cartier and Islamic art. That was so lovely - with so many exhibits showing the influence of the Islamic geometric designs which was so prevalent in the early 20th century, and the beautiful jewellery….there was also a history of photography exhibit which wasn’t too exciting, and the permanent exhibits were also not fabulous - some good art nouveau furniture, but the Art Deco section was closed.

      After that we had a “light” refreshment in a cafe, but it is never as light as you hope! We wanted to save ourselves for tonight’s dinner at La Coupole - a beautiful art deco restaurant where we went with Michael and family, and Omnia, in 2015! (Where James says he still vividly remembers that I had snails!).

      After lunch we did more walking, along rue St Honoré, (popped into the Jaeger le Coultre store to see their reverso exhibition), up the Champs Elysées, round the étoile (the Arc de Triomphe is surrounded by cranes at the moment) to Ave Foch and admired the magnificent apartment buildings and wide boulevards. Beautiful. And though there are always many people walking round those places, there is still a conspicuous lack of tourists - asians, Americans and arabs. All of Paris seems to have had a cleaning during the lockdown - many had already been spruced up, but now the stone buildings are gleaming, and the gold trim everywhere is almost too bright and shiny! But it all looks good. Dinner report later.

      Well now time for the dinner report…and maybe we had the best night of the trip!! We went by bus - we discovered a bus from here to Montparnasse, which works perfectly…slight panic as Amr (the efficient one) thought the booking was for 8 and found it was for 7.30…so we raced out the door, ran for a bus which had just come (running across a red man pedestrian light) and got there just about on time. Wonderful large space, art deco and a real vibe. We had a crazy waiter which was a bonus…first he said to Amr you are stressed and gave him a shoulder massage!! So that was a good start…he kept joking all night - in a good way - and recommended an Alsace Pinot, said it was better than what Amr had been going to order (and cheaper) and it was delicious. It is a large restaurant and it totally filled up. We had a Dutch (Dutch and Italian actually) couple next to us who we had a chat to, but when they left their table was very quickly filled…the streamlining of these restaurants is amazing to watch…and Amr had commented that one section was empty, when on the dot of 9 o’clock 60 young and gorgeous people all trooped in for some celebration- probably birthday as they were all much the same age…buzzing and buzzing…we saw them light a sparkler effect on an artificial cake to sing joyeux anniversaire for someone at a nearby table…then before we knew it, they did it to us, and sang it in English! Quite crazy! And our waiter took photos, and did one as a selfie, which just gets the top of his bald head, but it shows the room and vibe a bit.

      The food was superb. I had an entrée of 6 snails, so I could show James another photo of it in the same restaurant, Omnia had onion soup and Amr had a Guinea fowl and pistachio pâté. For mains Amr had kidneys in mustard sauce with spinach - delicious and what I would normally have ordered, but these days I only want small amounts and enjoyed having tastings of his! Omnia had a great seafood dish and I had a cheesy ravioli dish..yum. We got 2 desserts - Omnia chose profiteroles as she was looking for the perfect one, and I had a pavlova with chestnut cream and mandarins…both wonderful. Hard to relate the true feel of the night, but it was one of the best!
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    • Day 92

      Finally some rain, and the opera!

      October 29, 2021 in France ⋅ ⛅ 12 °C

      Even later tonight - it’s about 11.25 as we have just come back from the opera!! But to briefly remember the day - first we set off walking along a viaduct walkway (viaduct des arts or something) we see from our hotel window…and we find it goes all the way to bois de Vincennes one way (the end of the 1 metro line) and to Bastille at the other end…so we walked along it - very pretty with gardens and trees, at about the height of about 5 storeys up. And such an easy way to get to Bastille, prettier and shorter. Had a wander through the Marais and then got a metro to get to Galeries Lafayette for a bit of leisurely shopping. Home for a bit of downtime before heading off for an early pre opera dinner near the Bastille opera.

      What a thrill to go to the Paris opera for the first time, and to see Rigoletto! A bit of a kerfuffle at the beginning as Amr’s phone had a barcode but no numbers of seats and we found that we had needed to print them out…(unusual these days - and we couldn’t have on our travels anyway)..but the helpful man printed them for us and we were fine. The building is modern and not all that attractive from the outside, but really good inside I thought..sort of modern art deco style - squares and straight lines. And the opera was wonderful of course. Didn’t know the singers but loved them - especially Gilda (Nadine Sierra if anyone has heard of her), and Rigoletto was Ludovic Tézier…another fabulous day.
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    • Day 2

      Desaaasterchen

      June 18, 2019 in France ⋅ ⛅ 23 °C

      Guten Morgen aus Paris !! (Ja leider sind wir immer noch in Paris !! 🙄) .. das x-te mal überzeuge ich mich davon, dass Frankreich nicht mein Lieblingsland ist und auch Paris wird nicht die Liebe des Lebens.. auch nicht beim zweiten Mal hinschauen 😅

      Aber nun zum wahren Desasterchen.. der Bus kam 1 1/2 Stunden zu spät an, weil sich der (französische Busfahrer ein Stündchen Pause gegönnt hat .. war wohl müde 🤦🏻‍♀️).. so haben wir den Anschlusszug leider verpasst .. 🥺

      .. und so sitzen wir mal wieder (und jetzt ganz romantisch) zum Frühstück in Paris .. 😍🙄🙄 und genießen in einem überteuerten Café unter Abgasen und einem Lärm, dass man kaum das eigne Wort versteht unsere erste Urlaubssonne ☀️
      Aber auch das lehrt mich aufs Neue wie wichtig es ist mit den richtigen Menschen unterwegs zu sein. Ich bin ein weiteres Mal dankbar für Larissa mit der man einfach in jeder noch so Bescheidene Situation Freude haben kann.
      So bemerkte sie auch an diesem Morgen etwas sehr positives: „Sie riechen hier alle gut - zumindest die meisten. Das gefällt mir.“ 🤦🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️😂😂😂
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    • Day 498

      Paris, we made it!!

      August 3, 2020 in France ⋅ ☁️ 20 °C

      From Joinville it was only a couple of km to the Seine and the outskirts of Paris. It’s a lot more industrial than I expected, with building suppliers and multiple cement works right on the river banks and sand barges going backwards and forwards. The Arsenal Port is at the Bastille on the eastern edge of central Paris and that’s our base for sightseeing from. The first day we walked along the Left Bank from the Natural History Museum to Palais des Invalides not down on the river bank but higher up to see more of the buildings. We passed Nôtre Dame with its scaffolding, Palais de Justice, Monnaie de Paris, Institute de France, Orsay Museum, Legion of Honour Museum, with pictures of medals and names of recipients. We can see the bridges as we leave. We crossed the river using Pont Alexandre III, very ornate with gold leaf statues etc. Walking past Grand Palais and Petit Palais to Champs Elysees. Then down towards Place de la Concorde and our most expensive coffee to date, but it was good. Next we walked through the Jardin de Tuileries to the Louvre for our days cultural dose. The pictures and statues etc were impressive, Mona Lisa a bit of a let down but we’ve seen it now, but I was more taken with the building itself and size of the rooms and halls, the decorative ceilings etc. That said the French Crown Jewels were worth seeing as was Venus de Milo and the Sphinx. After almost 2hours we gave up and headed to the Hotel de Ville and Tourist Information then back to the left side over Isle St Louis and the Latin Quarter to see the Pantheon and surrounding buildings. Teatime and a rest for our feet then bed. There are just so many stunning buildings almost everywhere you look.Read more

    • Day 3

      Bunte Häuser 😵‍💫

      April 23, 2022 in France ⋅ ☁️ 13 °C

      Wir starten unsere heutige "Tour" am Gare du Lyon, in dessen Nähe sich die Rue Crémieux mit dessen bunten Häusern befindet.

      + + + Bilder folgen + + +

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    Canal Saint-Martin

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