A week in the suburbs of Paris

Its hard to believe we're only 9kms from the centre of Paris, its just so incredibly quiet in the suburbs. The most noise we've got is chirping birds and whistling builders on a building site a couple of blocks away. Its serene and even HRH, Havana the pussycat is very low maintenance and mostly justs sneaks in for a daily midnight snack. And what's more, we are just a 30minute metro ride to the right bank of Paris, Chatelet metro station.

After our busy stay in the city, we were glad to put our feet up and stay home for a few days. We did wander down to the local marche which was much quieter on the Wednesday than the Saturday, and also managed a walk around the block to check out our local boulangerie. The baguette was OK and as the days slowly cooled down, we ventured a bit further afield. At the end of our street is a tram which took us up to large shopping centre, Belle Epine. Similar to Forest Hill Chase, in Melbourne, it was pleasantly cool and had a wide range of ladies and men's clothing, including a Kiabi, much to Roger's delight. We picked up a few groceries at the huge Carrefour and then headed home on the tram for a late lunch. Came across our first grizzly french children. They didnt want to wear the hats Dad had brought them but amazingly there were no tantrums or meltdowns. Ultimately Dad was the boss and the whining was very short-lived.

On Saturday, we ventured back to our marchè as the prices were so reasonable. But first there was some people watching to be done, so we sat with our drinks outside the local restaurant and watched the world go by. A delightful young Dad rocked up with a beer and asked to share the shade. He had two gorgeous little girls with him (2yrs and 5yrs) and he just watched while they played happily in the jets of water, which was the local community splash pad. It turns out he was from Algeria and had been in Paris for 23 years. His wife worked in the bank and was doing end of year audits so he was on babysitting duties. Such a lovely guy who spoke very good English and whose daughters had such fun but were also very shy. When it was time to go, they waved and the littlest one turned around and said 'aurevoir' . Very cute.

By Sunday, we'd done the household chores and needed some serious exercise. I discovered that only 30 minutes away on the bus there was a large estate, Chateaux Seaux with gardens, a large canal and some beautiful treelined promenades. It was a spectacular small scale Chateau built in the mid 1800's, probably more of a country house for the gentry of Paris at the time, but the grounds were of an impressive scale, the water features refreshing and the long canal, similar to the one we had walked round in Fontainbleu even had rowboats for hire. We settled on sharing an icecream instead, and broke the 10,000 step barrier by the time we got home.Read more