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Published: August 11th 2006
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It's time for another instalment of Le Tour de Blondini, and as you may have guessed by the french inspired words we have hit Paris, city of luuuurrvvv!!!
After a great week in London of catching up with rellies, friends and sights (thank you so much Jennifer, Ryan, Andrew, Lynette, Anna and Nick) it was off on the eurostar, which takes us under the English channel, to Paris travelling at great speeds arriving in just two and a half hours. It's a great way to get to Paris but is expensive if you book it from London, lucky we have friends living here to help us with cheap tickets!
Paris, like London, has just been through a bit of a heat wave but luckily things have cooled off and it has been quite mild since our arrival.
We are staying with our friends Corinne and Julien in a typical one bedroom Parisien apartment, small by NZ standards, but luckily we have the use of their neighbours place, who are away on holiday. The place is very central with access to some of the best patisseries and shops in town just a hop & a skip down the stairs.
Sarah went to French high school with Corinne, so they've known each other for more than 12 years - it's finally great to meet her fiancé too.
Well so far we have had a full on time looking at the sites, sounds and smells that make Paris the city of llluuurrrvvv.
The first night in, Corinne took us to a flash tea shop, Mariage Frères, and made a few purchases, some nice iced tea and earl grey, real colonial type shop, huge range of specialty teas and really old. Then we went to Corinne and Julien's favourite French restaurant, Bouillon Racine, where of course I had to try the famous escargots and a rare steak, Sarah had beef carpaccio and suckling pig, excellent I must say. The restaurant was of art nouveau style, all still original, one for the Hawkes Bay 1930's buffs. After dinner we had a good walk along the river Seine which was real interesting, they have amphitheatre areas along the river where people dance. There was a huge area where people were rock n rolling, tangoing, salsa and capoera dancing (the brazilian fighting dance) heaps of people were giving it a go, all at
a level that was a few notches above my own, it was great.
The first site visited was the Eiffel Tower, built in the 1880's. It is one of if not the most photograhed structures in the world. By the number of people queing and waiting for a ticket to ride the elevator, or walk up the 700 stairs to level two (as we did) I would have to agree. A wonderful building but better to go later in the evening I think to keep away from the heaving masses of people.
The next touristic venture was a boating trip on the river Seine, a great way to see all the sites of Paris in an hour or so, really gave us a good understanding of the geography of Paris and history of some of the bridges. But the highlight of the day was our visit to Notre Dame. There happened to be a documentary show on inside the cathedral which went through the history of the building, it was real interesting. The cathedral was built in the 1300's and was the centre of the French Catholic church. The plan was to build the most beautiful building in
the known world, enough to convert the most heathenistic person to the faith; they must have converted a few as it is a most impressive place.
Next day we were off to the etoile (star) where the Arc de Triomphe is situated, a large crazy roundabout where 12 boulevards meet to cause traffic mayhem. The Arc is a memorial for wars the French have been involved in and has the tomb of the unknown soldier with an eternal flame for the dead of WW1. We then walked along the Champs Elysèe to the Louvre, quite a walk that takes in many flash shops, the Place de la Concorde (another crazy traffic hazard centred around an Egyptian obelisk) and Tuilleries garden which was once a great palace and the site of many beheadings (including Marie Antoinette & one of the Louis kings!).
The Louvre, ah yes the Louvre, well all I can say is its big, in fact the worlds largest museum, home of some of the planets most precious art and artifacts. One problem (probably due in part to that most average of books The Davinci Code) - it was extremely crowded. For all you rugby players it
was like being in a rolling maul, trying to roll towards the try line, the mona lisa, there she was in all her modest glory, that grin, so intriguing... nah it was awesome, especially when we got off the tourist track and found some interesting greek and egyptian artefact areas. The actual building itself is massive, a piece of art in itself.
Well next day we decided to head underground and visit the catacombs. This was really interesting. Most Parisian buildings and bridges are made out of the limestone and rocks mined from underneath it, meaning that there are kilometres of mines and tunnels underneath the city. This also means they cannot build up very easily so there are no skyscrapers, the buildings are mainly 5 and 6 stories high. Anyway in the late 1700's there was a problem with disease which was caused by rotting bodies buried in certain cemetaries, correct me if I am wrong anybody. So what they did was to exhume all the bodies out of these cemetaries and place them in some of the shafts - 100 years of bodies! Then someone had a bright idea to stack them up nicely and have the
public pay to come and have a look. So thats what we did, real spooky but interesting all the same, hope you enjoy the photos!
Well I hope I haven't bored you silly, its now time to go. We are off to Belgium tonight, I really don't know what I am going to do there, maybe you could suggest something to me Greg?! How do you say "pour me a beer" in French?!
Thanks so much Corinne and Julien for having us and taking us around and meeting your great friends - we really look forward to your wedding in September, it'll be great.
Au revoir les amis,
Scott & Sarah xx
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non-member comment
Bonjour tous les deux, j'ai ajouté un petit commentaire sur le précédent travelblog quand vous étiez encore à Londres. A bientôt. Maman