Advertisement
Published: August 9th 2007
Mouthwatering...
Patisserie on Champs ElyseesA smooth flight from Heathrow, and we arrived at one of my favourite airports (as far as looks go)... Paris' Charles de Gaulle. With a slight and casual grunt from the customs officer, we were officially into France! A long walk with heavy bags (still laden with gifts from generous Brazilians) led us to an extended period of time at the airport train station looking particularly confused, as we tried to make sense of all the permutations of tickets for public transport over the next few days... to and from the information stand, several consultations with an angel in disguise who could speak English and told us all the kinds of tickets we could buy, tickets finally, and then we were off! Not sure the Parisiens appreciated the two backpackers on the peak hour metro... but three trains later we made it out to the northern suburb of St Denis, and were greeted by lots of tall ugly grey buildings. A little more confusion, a little more walking, and we'd made it to our Parisien home - the illustrious Hotel Formule 1.
Now I'd only ever thought bad things about this chain of hotels. They were always especially boring looking
Empty chair
Tuilleries gardens on the outside, and weren't in particularly convenient locations. But when you're a cheap backpacker, they're gold! The shared bathrooms are particularly fun. They are like futuristic portaloos (about the same size) - they flush when you open the door to go in, flush when you use the tap afterwards, and flush when you go out. They're automatically cleaned in between patrons. They even have automatic tap and hand soap!!! Needless to say I was very impressed. Good one guys! Also to their favour, they serve a Nutella imitation as part of the condiments for breakfast.
Here I go rattling on about toilets and spread when you want to hear about St Denis. Well, there's a famous cathedral out there (which we didn't see), the Stade de France is there too (where France beat Brazil in the World Cup before last, which we also didn't see), and as we were told later, is apparently where the riots were the worst during the national elections before last. Great! It's out of the action of Paris, but not too far so as not being worth the trek for the cheap bed (and Star Trek bathroom).
That first day it was
about 6pm by the time we made it out there, Elle had suitably sore shoulders, so we stayed put in suburbia for a pizza at the local restaurant. I think it was a Turkish place, one of the waiters audibly expressing his appreciation of Elle's beauty. Which isn't the first time she's attracted Turkish men, but that's an entire other story. These Turksih fellas were friendly though, and along with that helpful gal at the airport train station, made us wonder at how the French ever got that stereotype of being rude and arrogant. Apparently they like it when you make attempts to speak their language... well, of all the different languages we're having a go at on this trip, French is probably the one I do best at (having sat through four years of it at high school... hmm... long time ago now), and I had a great time working on my vocabulary. I think by the end of France it at least doubled... from 5 to 10... anyway, the Lees' official conclusion is that on the presumption you start with a chirpy "Bonjour!" (a bit like the first song in Beauty and the Beast, which we sung a
Bike
By the Seine lot in France) - the French are friendly people!
We were excited about day 2 in Paris, because we were meeting Mum and Dad (Fergusson side) that night for a meal. Several reasons for this excitement - a free meal, offloading our excess baggage (DVD and CD library of Brazilian worship music, tambourine, books, paintings etc etc), and of course, their company! We metro-ed it to the Arc de Triomphe, and were equally impressed by Napoleon's tribute to himself as we were by what is apparently the world's busiest traffic roundabout. It sure looks like it. Driving examiners must love taking poor Parisien teenagers to it...
We walked down the Champs Elysees, which mostly wasn't that exciting, being filled with typical expensive clothing stores. That said, we were stopped in our tracks by a patisserie chain called "Paul"... freshly baked baguettes, brioches, all sorts of healthy looking (in a soul food kind of way) danishes and cakes. OK, so no one bakes like the French do. Even the humble, staple baguette is a joy to eat, especially when it's still warm... crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside... further down the Champs the scenery got a little
With the folks
Good meal and parental hugs (for Elle) more interesting with some spectacular buildings (Grand and Petit Palais) and lovely gardens (in particular the Tuileries). The Tuileries led straight to the Louvre, with its famous glass pyramid, one of Paris' smaller museums... a short queue took us inside to the very impressive foyer, but we were out pretty soon after when we found out we could get in for free on Friday evenings (which was a few days later). Cool! Another thing the French do well is discounted admissions for younger people and free days for museums. Almost as good as London...
Out of the Louvre, across half of Pont Neuf, and we were at Ste Chapelle, a(nother) gothic cathedral, this one being especially famous for it's stained glass windows. We were a bit disappointed to find that half of the outside and the best of the inside was covered with scaffolding (which seemed to be a trend in Western Europe at this time of year...), but it was very beautiful nonetheless. A few blocks later we were at Notre Dame, a massive... gothic cathedral. I have to say though, it was pretty amazing...especially liked the carvings on the outsides of the choir stalls (which were very
Christ-centred)
Onward to meet the folks (in law), who were staying in a particularly nice hotel in town (nothing on the F1 though). It was cool seeing family on the other side of the world... you do really start to miss them after about 2 months of travelling... there's a lot I miss about home at the moment actually... really looking forward to getting back there. But enough whining! We had a great dinner at a nearby restaurant, and I ordered as much as I could eat. Thanks for the meal, parents! They were pretty aghast as we unpacked our bags and gave them things to take back to Sydney, including a few wooden bits from South America. They told us afterwards that Aussie customs were pretty good to them.
The next day we booked train tix in person for our trip to Provence... we both had Eurail passes, which were for 7 travelling days over 2 months in 2 countries. You actually have to pay quite a significant reservation fee, especially for night trains, and on Italian trains. We worked out that it would have worked out quite a bit cheaper if we had just paid for
As French as it gets
I thought Elle captured the night perfectly with this one! all our trains as we went, as we were mostly taking short journeys. You live and learn... but there's a tip if you're planning to do Europe.
That lunchtime we began our French budget diet of baguettes and dip (and came in significantly under budget, which we were proud about), which we had on the steps of the Musee D'Orsay, before heading in. Well aware of the dangers of museum fatigue, we went straight to the first floor and saw the French impressionists, which included one of Elle's favourites, Van Gogh's Church at Auvers. My favourite was at one of the temporary exhibitions, by a guy whose name I can't remember, although I know it was hyphonated. On from there, a long walk to the Eiffel tower, which, when you get near it, is always so much bigger than you expect. We dug into the best crepes of the trip (Nutella and banana... mmm) just outside the tower, by the Seine, before heading up to the top.
Interesting diversion. The previous day a lady had come up to us and gave us a card with a message written in English on it, saying how she was a refugee
Beautiful steel
The Eiffel again, stunning at night from Bosnia, and needed money. We gave her some, even though we weren't entirely sure of her story. As we were eating our crepes there were a group of three girls, walking past and chatting away quite happily, when one of them caught eye of us, ran over to us, asked rather abruptly "speak English?" then stuck a card in our face, which said she was a refugee from Bosnia, and had no money, and that her brother was sick in hospital and needed money for medicine. I asked her why her brother was in hospital but that was where the language barrier took over. Anyway, we said no to her several times, before she walked off in a huff and skipped off to join her friends.
The view from the top of the tower is amazing. It was expensive, and blew our sights budget that day, but was worth it. As always from any high point, it's a lot of fun being able to spot things in the distance. We were told we were 16 962 km from Sydney. That's a long way. These European summers make for long days, and by the time we made it down
(after several queues, almost as long as those to get up) it was getting late. We did get to see the tower all lit up though, which I was very excited about. We indulged in more local cuisine that night... Japanese... (which apart from the miso soup was probably the most un-Japanese meal I've had). To be honest, the only French meal we really had was the one with the parents.
Our last day of working the sights of Paris took us to Versailles, the ginormous chateau built by Louis XIV. It's incredibly over the top and very egocentric... there are paintings adorning every wall, velvet walls, lots of gold gilding, plenty of statues... the gardens are lots of fun and are actually free to wander around. Well, time was getting on, and we raced back to Paris to make it to church that night via the Louvre, where we said a quick hello to the Venus de Milo and the Mona Lisa. Church was very cool that night... it's always good to get around people with a similar spirit, especially after extensive sight seeing on your own in a big city full of people you don't know.
Palace of Versailles
Very grand... managed to hide the scaffolding with this one... well done Elle! Very encouraged by the service, we spent our last night in St Denis, and it was late by the time we got back out there. The only thing open was a Middle Eastern joint, and I indulged in steak frites, which seems to be a meal you can get at any time in France. It's doner kebab meat stuffed together with lots of fries and meagre amounts of salad (making it nice and healthy, of course!) into a bun. I always liked putting chips into my burgers... I wonder if it counts as a French meal, having the French fries and all...
We said a fond farewell to the F1, and after a few trains and changes, just made it onto our TGV at Gare de Lyon. Elle continues the story in the next blog...
Advertisement
Tot: 0.191s; Tpl: 0.018s; cc: 16; qc: 72; dbt: 0.0712s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.3mb
Kit
non-member comment
You made my mouth water - the best thing to eat in paris is the baguettes - or the french onion soup!! but maybe that is because i have only been there with no money - we should go there once with money - might be a better culinary experience!! love you both x Kit