Vive le France!

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Another hearty breakfast at the Hotel Stern included two coffees for Damian who wanted to claw back some value out of the stay in Schweiz (three coffees might have been overdoing it and probably not good for his bladder on the long train trip ahead). Emily also stole some bread as she was desperate to find a way to feed the swans.

The day was even cloudier than yesterday with a light drizzle and we made our short walk to the train station, via "Swan Lake". A Japanese tourist was so enamored by Emily feeding the bird life that he wanted to take a photo of her. She'll probably end up on some billboard in Japan.

With a bit of time before our train was due to depart, we did some shopping at the station supermarket for some snacks for the train and to get rid of the last of our Swiss Francs currency.

The train departed from Luzern Banhof right on time at 10:54am to take us to Basel for our connection with the very fast train (TGV) at 12:34. The trip was typically easy, quiet and relaxing and the connection at Basel equally efficient and on time.

There were two stops on the way to Gare Lyon in Paris - Mulhouse Ville and Belfort-Montb TGV. After Belfort, the VFT really hit its straps - up to 318 km/h!!

We travelled through lovely, green countryside, occasionally interrupted by huge fields of golden daffodils. Overall an easy trip and the enfants enjoyed their iPods, music and movies.

After arriving at Paris-Gare de Lyon, we left for our apartment which was only two Metro stops away at Rue Mahler in the 4th arrondissement - Marais - which is supposed to be one of the two precincts which is right in the thick of the action in Paris. Perfect for a family of five...

We were there in no time and were greeted by Catarina who showed us in. Everything looks good except the washing machine is not working. They assure us it will be fixed tomorrow. It better be or we start turning our underwear inside out.

Being Sunday there were two extra special treats in store for us. First, supermarkets are shut so we ate out - again!. Although, this time we found a local Traiteur (Chinois Gourmet!) and took the food back to our apartment. It wasn't traditional French food but the flavours made a nice change from pizza and pasta and it wasn't at Switzerland prices. Second, the apartment owners charged us an extra Euro 50 for checking in on Sunday (of course, they showed us the ultra fine print in the contract). Luckily the wine we bought from the local merchant, a Chiroubles from the Beaujolis region was well-recommended - and exceptional - and we forgot about it soon enough.

We also managed to find a bakery to buy some bread and croissants and a fruit stall for some fruit for breakfast tomorrow.

For the evening we settled into our cosy apartment, listened to some jazz music from Putumayo and relaxed. Just perfect. Tomorrow is a big day for the enfants - Euro Disney. It looks like being the only good day of weather in Paris for the week so we our taking our opportunity.

So far, Sue has mentioned nothing about the fact she is finally in Paris with the love of her life, Damian. We shall see what the week ahead has in store.

For his part, Damian is impressed with the French femmes. Very elegant and they smoke those long, thin cigarettes. In fact, a lot of people smoke. And lots of people throw their unextinguished butts on the ground. Didn't that stop happening in the 80's in Australia?

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