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Published: July 25th 2015
This rather long blog (my trip diary) covers from July 11 thru July 26, our remainder of time spent in Paris 2015.
Paris has been exceptionally hot this year, hotter than any other visit, with temperatures in the high 30's; it's not good for sleeping and, after spending 4 hours rambling around the city, as a norm, I feel completely drained of energy.
Anyway, on 11 July the Ackman's from Russell arrive in Paris. Ed has been in Shanghai on business and Wendy flew direct from Auckland. Unfortunately, Ed has a man-cold and his time in Paris is pretty miserable.
The consensus for the afternoon is a quiet stroll around Isle Saint Louis, and a pilgrimage to the apartment Caroline and Wendy had rented last year! I leave to meet a friend, Fred, who I met while in Paris with Harrison in 2010. Over the past couple of months, Fred has helped Caroline communicate with the staff at Versailles to arrange a special tour of the behind-the-scenes Versailles. We have drinks in the Latin Quarter and Fred heads home. The four of us have dinner in “bacteria alley” which houses rows and rows of tourist restaurants.
Australian Memorial at The Somme
Australian and allied graves on the Somme from the top of the memorial.All want your business or at least your euros and you constantly accosted as you pass each restaurant. Of course, all offer cheap 3-course meals. But, if you want a quality meal, give this a miss......
Sunday morning sees us on the RER (train) to Versailles. After their visit in 2014, Caroline and Wendy have decided that the only way to see the palace is to have a private tour. On arrival, the crowds of people are immense and suddenly I'm glad that we don't have to queue. However, just because we are on a private tour doesn't mean that everything flows smoothly. The girls want to visit the gardens before our tour, but the supervisor is at lunch and it is impossible to get any one of the staff to make a decision, other than “non, impossible”It's a good job our friend, Fred, is with us and able to access emails on his phone. The private tour takes us into the private apartments of Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI. As Fred remarked, the rooms behind formal Versailles reminded him of and old sailing ship with low ceilings and windy staircases. And yes, we do get to see the
Bastille Day on Champs Elysees
Looking up towards the Arch de Triumph. gardens!
Sunday evening sees us at the Brasserie de Louvre for dinner, Ed is not having a good time and leaves half of his main dish; we know he's sick when he can't finish a good meal..
The next day, Caroline and Wendy are off to Galleries Lafayette for a little retail therapy. Ed nurses his cold and remains very stoic, while I hike to the Eiffel Tower to see what is being setup for Bastille Day. I then walk back to the apartment via Les Invalides (where Napoleon is entombed) and the Montparnasse tower. Lots of walking, but little weight loss.
I'm a lonely guy, no-one will come with me to a Fireman's Ball, held in many of the fire stations throughout the city on the eve of Bastille Day. I have visions of Paris Burning, while pompiers party hardy!! I arrive at around 9.30, have a couple of beers, listen to the dance music and leave at 11.30. While I am able to get in easily at 9.30, the queue extends for approx 400 meters when I leave. These balls are held in fire stations throughout the city on the eve of Bastille
Day. Normally they start at 9.00pm and continue til 3.00am. Definitely off the beaten path and a “must do” if you are visiting Paris during Bastille week.
July 14, Bastille Day, sees us four Russelites join the hordes of people on the Champs Elysees for a show of French strength, military parades and fly-overs. Security is heightened with many plain clothes police mingling with the crowds. I am on the street waiting for the parade to start while Caroline, Wendy and Ed have all retired to cafe George V to drink coffee, eat and watch the parade on the big screen. After the parade we all head back to the apartment for a well deserved nap and to get ready for the evenings festivities at the Eiffel Tower.
The evening of Bastille Day is just as hectic, crowds form around the Eiffel tower to listen to a concert and watch the fireworks. The fireworks start at around 11.00pm and it would seem to me the cost of which would equal the Greek National debt. A spectacle fantastique! However, when we leave the crowds are horrendous and we end up walking around 5Km to home.
Wednesday,
Veuve Clicquot
In the champagne house. L'Ebauchoire for lunch, walk around Place des Vosges, the oldest planned square in the city and the residence of Victor Hugo. Today, it's mainly art galleries and restaurants. Myself and Ed, make our way back to the apartment hotter than hell. The girls, brave a little more shopping.
Thursday, Ackmans leave; Caroline now has Ed's cold!
My sister Ann and her husband Dave arrive around 6pm, so we hit the ground running and go to Hotel de Ville (Caroline nurses her cold at home) to see one of the free concerts and spend 1.5 hours standing with crowds of young people to watch an English band called Django Django. I'm hot, the body heat from the hordes has raised the temperature by another couple of degrees, it must be 40C. The band finishes and we push our way through the crowds into the Marais. There are several more bands on the bill, but we are all too hot and uncomfortable to stand in a crowd of thousands for another 2 hours. We find a cafe that isn't exceptionally crowded and have a couple of beers before returning to the apartment.
Friday, the next morning we are up
British Memorial at the Somme
The British Memorial on the Somme is the largest World War I Memorial. fairly early to catch a train from Gare de L'est to Reims. This city is in the heart of the champagne region and we have booked a tour with Veuve Clicquot. Yes, one of the premier champagne houses and worth the one hour train journey from Paris. We like what we see of the city and also visit the cathedral where the kings of France were crowned. Imposing, as with all of the major monuments it is kept in a good state of repair. The Veuve Clicquot tour takes us through caves explaining how the champagne is bottled, the bottles capped and turned, the sediment removed, the aging process and finally a tasting of their standard and vintage champagne. Definitely worth a sip!
Saturday has Caroline and Ann on a croissant course to learn the baking process, this is followed by a trip to the flea market, Marche au Puce and dinner back at L'Ebauchoire. The meal is excellent and we finish this off with their signature rice pudding.
Sunday, Ann and Dave depart. In the evening we attend a soiree at a private home along with around fifty to sixty other people of different age groups. The
Leaving Reims
Caroline, Ann and Dave prior to us catching the train back to Paris. host, Jim Haynes http://www.jim-haynes.com/ has made a nice cottage industry of holding dinner parties at his home every Sunday eveningfor the past 30 years. He informs me he has had 150K (not quite, I think))people at his dinners, so at 30Euro per person donation he's found a niche market. He's now about 80 years old and holds court in a chair while the evening unfolds around him. There are a number of his Parisian friends that also attend to mix with the paying guests and liven up the conversation. I have a long chat with David, a white haired gentleman who had been an “architect” in Sydney and retired to Paris 20 years earlier. Definitely worth the experience and a fun way to meet visitors and residents of Paris.
Monday, July 20th. A monumental day, I have a message from my daughter Maryvonne in Waikino, NZ, informing me that I am a Grandfather to a baby girl, Lola Rose. Yea and welcome to this wonderful world!
A visit to Chateau Vincennes, started life as a hunting lodge in the 1100's and added to over the years. Major construction commenced in the 1300's by Charles V. Supposedly, relics from
Caroline outside Les Deux Magots
Hangout of Hemingway, Picaso and yours truly! the Crown of Thorns were also held in the chapel. It has been abandoned, served as a prison, inmates include the Marquis de Sade and Nicolas Fouquet, finance minister to Louis XIV were imprisoned here. The fortress has been destroyed, rebuild and restored over several centuries. And, in August, 1944, 26 policemen and resistance fighters were executed by the Waffen SS during the battle for the liberation of Paris, their bodies thrown into a communal grave in the moat. Even with it's impressive historical significance, Chateau Vincennes is not on the must-see for Paris, but worth a visit if you are at a loose end.
Tuesday, July 21, the temperatures are in the 30's, so we decide we will only spend a half day out in he city. Our destination, Musee Cluny, but when we arrive it's closed! Yes, closed on Tuesdays. So, a trip to the Pantheon. I have walked around the outside of this building many times, but never stepped inside. This is my big chance! A very impressive building designed by Soufflot; sounds more like a chef than an architect. The large mausoleum holds the remains of heroes of the resistance, Jean Maulin and other writers,
Chagal Windows Reims Cathedral
Windows in Reims Cathedral designed by Mark Chagal. philosophers and scientists such as Victor Hugo, Voltaire and the Curie's.
The following day we are up at 5.00am to catch the inter-city train to Amiens approximately 130Km north of Paris. We are on a visit to the Somme for the day and have booked a tour of first world war monuments and battlefields. Terres de Memoire, a company that specializes Australia and NZ tours. Our group consists of five Australians and we two adopted Kiwi's. The tour guide is knowledgeable, speaks excellent English and escorts us around the various battlefields, cemeteries and monuments. The Somme is not just a single battle, however the main battle is fought in 1916 between July and November. The loss of life is immense on both sides and British Generals relied on battle theory from a bygone era, they were slow to react to modern warfare. It's hard to comprehend that this rolling landscape covered in wheat fields and crops was a living hell for millions of young men between 1914-1918.
An exerpt from www.learnngsite.co.uk.
“Lord Kitchener was a supporter of the theory of attrition – that eventually you would grind down your enemy and they would have to yield. He
On Pont Neuf
Unfortunately, we blocked out the river and the Conciergerie. saw the military success of the battle as all-important. However, it did have dire political and social consequences in Britain. Many spoke of the lost generation. Many people found it difficult to justify the near 88,000 Allied men lost for every one mile gained in the advance. “
It reminds me of the final episode of Black Adder, where Rowan Atkinson is worn down by the stupidity of the British High Command and finally has to go over the top into the incessant machine gun fire. Cut!
Thursday, lot's of walking and in the evening we watch the sunset at Pont Neuf (not that there was much of a sunset) and I check out my new tripod that I had purchased in Hong Kong. However, I should have brought my telephoto lense.
Friday, 24 July. A guided tour of Musee de Cluny, the middle ages museum in the Latin Quarter. This is a find and we spend a good hour of this former Abbey, built on the site of Roman baths. Roman statuary as well as tapestries, and other artifacts from the 1600's.
Saturday, we pack and then have lunch at Les Deux Magots in St
Champers anyone?
Just a small portion of the champagne stored in the Veuve Clicquot caves. Germain. It is now a tourist destination, but once upon a time was the favorite hangout of writers and artists, Hemingway, Picaso, Sartre and James Joyce.
Sunday, 26 July, Bordeaux or Bust.......
Paris Observations. There are very few obese people, it must be all the steps in the Metro. Smoking, but maybe less than our last visit. Enough with the beggars! Everyone speaks English. Shorts, only the tourists. Overall, people are just smaller in Europe.
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Jay Brara
non-member comment
Enjoyable reading, good pictures!
Great read!