There is nothing like a brisk walk to the train station lugging ones luggage around to quicken the heart rate on a cool morning. After quickly getting ready, eating breakfast and finalising our packing, Heidi and I were soon at Gare de Nord station checking into our 9am train to London. We're currently being whisked across the picturesque French country side at a couple of hundred kilometres an hour and will make the journey, which includes the channel tunnel, in about 2 and a half hours.
Yesterday was another slow start thanks to a late meal at a nearby cafe after hanging around Eiffel waiting for the lights to come on the night before. What a view though! Definately worth the wait. We arrived in time for happy hour which meant cheap mojitos for Heidi and cheap 1664s for me. We both had a steak that was rather tough but the meal and the atmosphere was nice overall. The wait staff certainly tried their best to help us out....even though they waited for us to struggle with the french menu for 10 minutes before offering the english version. Cheap laughs?
We filled up on another complimentary breakfast of cereal, bread and jam and some more-ish pastries before catching the RER and metro out along the Seine back to the Eiffel tower. France certainly turned on the good weather for us - the days have had blue skies and the tempartures for us Queenslanders hasn't been too cold. Only two of the accesses up the tower were open again and the queue for the stairs was non-existent, especially when compared to the elevator. Soon we were up on the first observatory level admiiring the view, despite a somewhat hazy morning. Heidi wasn't feeling that well, but we soldiered on to the next platform and grabbed a quick bite and coffee at the bistro. The views were quite amazing and thanks to the blue skies, the Seine was quite appealing. We managed to find all our destinations of the previous days adventures and mini-Liberty just downstream. I went upstairs to check out the options for the lift to the top observatory, but due to maintenance only one was operational and the line up looked horrendous. Spending a couple of hours in line with all those school tours wasn't too appealing either. Heidi still wasn't feeling well, so we decided to give the top observation deck a miss, I'm sure the haze meant the view wasn't that good yesterday anyway. We sat downstairs on the lawns and admired the view while Heidi rested and we soon ventured back to Gare de Nord station.
It was about 2pm and I had decided to put Heidi to bed for the afternoon and give her a chance to rest up. We grabbed a baguette and some mini-macaroons at a bakery and some supplies (ie, beer) at a supermarket for the afternoon. I was just going to sit in our room and start sending some emails for the future part of the trip. By the time we got back and into our room, we (ie, Heidi) had polished off the baguette - boy was it nice. Anyway, the seemed to help out her upset tummy and she was soon fast asleep. I entertained myself with emails, a french dubbed version of the Redford/Pitt movie masterpiece Spy Game and a monster can of Heineken. I woke Heidi up around 6 and we went for a walk up to restaurants surrounding Gare de Nord and had a nice meal in front of the station. Heidi had a running joke with the maitre'd about the packet of chamomile tea she purchased on the way there - we're still not sure whether he thought it was for a possible hangover or morning sickness... but it helped calm an upset tummy last night anyway. Despite the temptation of crepes or creme brulee, we decided against dessert and we now lament not buying more macaroons for our train trip today.
Our experiences in Paris were overall great. We never felt threatened or unsafe at all and unlike "Grandpa" we didn't lose our wallet to a pickpocket or clumsiness. We are definately in the low tourist season, as the queues for the attractions have all been fairly painless - the Palace at Verseilles was probably the longest wait at about 30 minutes and we have a new found dislike for tour groups - despite the magnitude of those French royal palaces a school or tour group in those rooms soon doesn't leave much room for the rest of us. We have had blue skies everyday and the temps have probably been in the low teens, with a wind chill that just cuts you in half. Our venture out last night was the first time I've had to dig out my overcoat but I would have survived the short trip without it. We mastered the public transport system pretty quickly and thankfully managed to navigate our way around the city without getting on the wrong train or going in the wrong direction. Not too bad I don't think for a couple whose French language skills stop at bonjour and merci. And Yopliat. The people we spoke with were generally polite and helpful, but we still witnessed why the French are considered rude.... they don't appear to be that courteous when you are in a crowd (not just a French thing either these days). At lot of the signage at the attractions is all in French and there is a lot they could do to help our their non-French speaking visitors. We were nearly at the end of Lourve visit when we realised that each room had a separate card available with the english explanation of that room..... something Verseille did much better. Regardless, we got ourselves around well and saw all the sights we wanted too and will take away many fond memories of our visit. Our visit was a nice introduction to France and a good look at Paris, one day we might came back to explore some of the other areas of the country.
Soon we'll be at London looking for a score on how the Aussies are going against India in the Wold Cup semi-final.
No comments:
Post a Comment