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Published: June 22nd 2010
WE LOVE PARIS! We arrived by train and after dropping off our bags went straight to Montmarte where the Moulin Rouge is (I have been writing Rogue a lot but I do mean Rouge!). We had tickets for the show that night and wanted to double check what the correct attire is! We were planning to wear jeans and nice tops but found out this wasn’t acceptable as other people for the 9pm show were there to have dinner before us. Luckily Lysh had a dress and we quickly found some dress pants for Richie! Of course we found out later that there were plenty of people wearing jeans. Never mind, we looked good!!
After our bit of shopping we went to the Arc de Triomphe. From here we caught our first glimpse of the Eiffel Tower which was exciting and also took in the crazy traffic on the roundabout below and the Champs Elysees. We got a great view over Paris and it gave us our bearings. At the Arc we met our 4th Aussie couple of the day! Our accents really stand out!
We then headed back to get ready for the Moulin Rouge. We had heard
many mixed reviews about the show but had decided we wanted to go and make up our own mind! It definitely wasn’t the best choreography ever and the dancers weren’t always in time but we loved the flamboyant costumes and the support acts were really great. It was a really fun night. We would say the Moulin Rouge is a must do once but next time we’ll check out the Lido which we have heard is better. The theatre is in the middle of the red light district so when we left the show we were surrounded by neon lights and lots of “interesting” shops and clubs . Pity we had to catch the metro before midnight....
The next day after a little sleep in we headed into town. First things first we went to see the Eiffel Tower up close and personal. It’s bigger than we thought and awesome! We were so excited to be in Paris! Next we went on walk to take in some of the major sights including Notre Dame (Cathedral de Notre Dame de Paris) and the Panthenon.
It was an absolutely gorgeous day so we had a picnic lunch in the Jardins
de Luxembourg. There were lots of other tourists and locals out also enjoying the rays. There were a group of school kids there and Richie made friends with a little French boy - although they didn’t speak the same language! It was very cute.
After lunch we went to visit the Catacombes which is an underground cemetery full of tunnels of bones. Unfortunately they were closed because of flooding. We also went back the following day but still no luck .We also missed out on seeing the Capuchin Crypt in Rome (because we were stuck with the rambling Vatican guide) so maybe we’re just not destined to see bones on this trip!
Next we went up the Eiffel Tower!! This was near the top of our “to do” list for the trip so we were excited! We opted for the smaller queue and cheaper option to climb the stairs. The walk up was a little scary for Lysh but the platforms on the way gave a good break from the scary stairs. You have to do the last leg by the lift which puts you up at 273m high!! It was a breathtaking view! We met the same
couple again from the Arc de Triomphe and after chatting for about 20min Lysh was distracted enough from her fear of heights to really enjoy the view! We could see all of Paris and pick out all o the landmarks.
After our exciting afternoon we walked along the right bank to the Musee D’Orsay . We had a quick bite to eat before going in and ate beside Leo Sayer (we’re sure some of you will know who he is)! The museum (gallery) was fantastic. We saw a lot of famous pieces including some by Van Gogh, Renoir and Monet.
In the morning we headed up to Montmarte where we took in the view over Paris and went into the Basilique du Sacre Coeur (Basilica of the Sacred Heart). The main square (Place du Terte) was bustling and full of artists stalls, many of whom were doing great caricatures. We wandered back down through the souvenir area and came across a lot of scam artists! They’d set up cardboard boxes and played a game where you would place a bet and guess which of 3 discs has a coloured dot under it. Each scammer had 2 fake players
who would all of a sudden “win” 50 euro. We saw one poor tourist get ripped off by more than 100 euro but there was nothing we could do, he just kept handing over money. After watching for a while we figured out their whole operation including seeing them pay their police lookout! Extremely dodgy!
After a nice walk down from Montmarte then along the left bank and into the Jardin des Tuileries we spent the afternoon in the Louvre (Musee Du Louvre). Wow, what a gallery! It was a little overwhelming! We especially loved the sculptures and the Egyptian section. Lysh’s favourite statue was “Psyche Revived by Cupid’s Kiss” - it’s very beautiful and romantic! We saw so many amazing things including the Mona Lisa of course! As we had heard she is just a small painting but we did find her to be quite bewitching! Both of us couldn’t stop thinking about the Mr Bean movie though! One other very famous piece we saw was the Venus de Milo. Another highlight was the Napoleon III Apartments. They were very lavish and gave us a break from paintings and sculptures! We were quite exhausted when we left and
definitely arted out!
We still can’t believe we were in Paris and saw all of the things we’d heard about and seen in books/tv! It was so exciting! We had a lovely romantic dinner in the gardens at the base of the Eiffel tower (Jardins du Trocadero) and took in the light show. It was a perfect end to a wonderful day.
The next day we wandered around the suburb near our hotel (llevolis) which has a lovely relaxed cafe/market vibe on the weekend. It’s a great quiet area with lots of parks, it’s clean and close to the metro. We could definitely see ourselves living here (but don’t worry we’re still coming home!)! We did some laundry but after returning 30 minutes later to wet clothes we realised the tiny writing on the dryer meant “out of order”. We finally got there though and with clean clothes on (that’s a luxury!) we headed into the city. It was a scorching hot day so we tried to escape the sun. They weather man said it only got to 21, but the sun was searing hot! We walked through the gardens, up through Concorde Square and the Opera area
and finished up at the Champs Elysees. We did some window shopping in all the fancy stores and decided not to join the Louis Vutton queue (yes, a queue to get in and everyone was coming out with big bags of goodies!)! We decided to spend the rest of the arvo people watching. There were some interesting characters! We moved on to a more affordable area and ended our day with a few happy hour cocktails.
We were supposed to be leaving today but we are loving Paris so much and are ahead of our rough schedule so thought we’d stay until tomorrow. We also thought we’d see if we could get into the French Open which starts today.
In the morning we headed out to Roland Garros to see if there was any chance of getting in. There were lots of scalpers but as the day tickets all have names on them these seemed a bit dodgy and also very expensive! We learnt that you can come back around 5pm and they sell tickets based on how many people with day tickets had already left. We headed back in the afternoon as suggested and joined a ridiculously
long queue! After sussing out the situation up ahead we realised that it was only tourists in the queue and that all the locals were just creating a bottleneck at the start of the queue and pushing their way through! We decided to ditch the queue and join the locals. After a bit of pushing and shoving (it’s the way they do it here!) we got in! We saw around an hour and a half of play in centre court which was a match between Tsonga and Brands. We had awesome seats and saw lots of action including a racket throwing tantrum from Tsonga and lots of Mexican waves. The crowd were going crazy for Tsonga (he definitely had the home crowd advantage) but we were cheering for Brands who’s German. Tsonga won in the end and it was pretty cool to see a Frenchman win a match at the French open. We saw a bit more play on the smaller courts and enjoyed some beers. Maybe it was the hot day or because we were watching sport but even Lysh had a beer craving and chugged one down!
We also had an interesting time in between our visits
to Roland Garros. We were on a metro but had to jump off because the station up ahead was closed because of a suspicious package. We didn’t know this right away though as the announcement was in French. A man came up to us and explained. As we got chatting he was excited to hear that we were from Australia as he had lived in Sydney and Tassie years ago. We ended up going for coffee and spending a couple of hours with him. He was an extremely interesting man who works for the EU and had been a political prisoner in the past. We also think he knew more about Australia than us! We wouldn’t normally go for coffee with a stranger and although we stayed slightly on guard just in case, however Rico was a lovely genuine person and we were glad we met him! He said he wished he bumped into us at the start or our Paris adventure as he would have loved to show us around. Maybe next time!
The next morning we left on a train bound for Brussels, Belgium. We were sad to be leaving Paris as we loved it so much!
We were very impressed with cleanliness and friendliness of Paris and of France generally. The French certainly don’t deserve their arrogant reputation. Everyone was lovely to us. I loved overhearing people say “ooh la la”! We had heard the Gypsy’s were bad in Paris but we actually didn’t find them as bad as some other places. We would have to say though that a lucky day in France is not stepping in dog poo! The only other slightly bad thing is it’s hard to find a good coffee in France but this is more than made up for by the pastries!! The patisseries were like art galleries and very drool worthy!
We missed out on seeing western France but this is on our ever growing list of “next times”.
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