Aah...Paris

As we've been travelling we've come across some really funny people. The funniest were probably the two ladies in their seventies who were sitting opposite us in the Eurostar fast train to Paris - for two hours and 20 minutes!

As usual we were way ahead of time arriving at the station, St Pancras, which is attached to Kings Cross Station - Monopoly Board again! It's a huge complex. More about that later.

Anyway back to the two ladies. They bustled in and sat down, parcels and bags scrunched up trying to fit in behind the dividing table. The table is actually quite cleverly done, the outer edges, a quarter of the width along the seat edge, fold up and into the centre so there is room for you to stand up and move away from your seat. However the ladies were still scrunched up for a while until they got themselves organised. One lady was particularly stressed, blustering, panting and worrying. The calm lady gave me a bit of a wink so I knew something was up. They finally settled down with their bags in place but hells bells could they talk. Yack, yack, yack...one re-assuring the other that everything was OK. Then out came the little bottle of wine, the glass, the bag of nibblies and a bottle of water (for Mrs Calm). Things went along that line for an hour or so, with a new bottle of wine mixed with some orange juice at one stage, 'shouldn't drink too much' said Mrs Bustle. Then they started talking about mountain bikes and how Mrs Calm owned a 'Giant' and on her last ride things went really well. Mrs Bustle owned one too but hadn't had much of a chance to ride it lately!

Well at hearing this Laurie and I nearly exploded with hilarity. The thought of these two ladies battling with a Giant brand mountain bike on English roads was almost too much to contemplate. It was a hoot to listen to. We are not in the habit of eavesdropping but there wasn't a lot of choice - they were a metre away, on the seats opposite our table and they were quite well lubricated by this time. Then Mrs Calm was talking about their impending fortnight in Italy after leaving Paris. Yikes, I can't imagine spending anytime with Mrs Bustle let alone two weeks. You'd be a stress head by the end of your 'holiday.'!

Now St Pancras International:

One of the many Eurostar trains at St Pancras International Railway Station. At one end of the station is the most amazing bronze statue of an English man and his French girl friend re-united at the station.

It is 10 metres high and weighs 20 tonnes.

Around the circumference of the statue are numerous scenes, also in bronze. This a truly a work of art for everyone to see.

Many of the scenes depict workers on the construction of the underground rail system.

Now for Paris....

After that entertaining trip on the Eurostar once we arrived at Paris Nord, we jumped on the Metro heading for our hotel. Once there we had the quickest check in of all time. Bonjour, third floor, room 24.

The lift was interesting:

Seriously cute lift. Glad we only had small wheelie bags with us.

As you can see from our feet, there was not a lot of room! The staircase was charming.

The hotel, Montpensier on Rue du Richelieu, is in the most fantastic location in Paris, two minutes walk from Le Louvre and also the Seine where there are river cruises. Our room wasn't quite like the ones depicted on their website. In fact there was such a slope on the floor that we had to re-arrange the furniture ie rotate the bed 90 degrees so that one of us wouldn't spend the night rolling on top of the other or worse still out the other side!!!! The other disappointment was the bathroom - it was like stepping into a cupboard - up and over a step, no soap only hand wash liquid. In the room there was no tea and coffee making facility (or downstairs), no tissues, no hair drier hmmm BUT it had free wifi in the dining room/lobby downstairs and the breakfasts were excellent - continental of course but plenty to eat. The whole place was very clean. It showed us never to believe everything on an operator's website which in this case said it was a three and a half star property. On arrival the sign at the front over the entry door was two star which is about what I would judge it to be.

Those whinges aside the location was awesome so the inadequacies faded into the background when we realised how good the spot was. On our first morning, not realising the hotel served breakfast, we headed for the Eiffel Tower hopefully locating a cafe on the way. We didn't but must admit to purchasing the longest hot dogs we've ever seen from the kiosk at the tower. We were starving but after eating them didn't even look like needing lunch, in fact skipped lunch and had dinner about 8 pm!

Laurie and super hot dog at the Eiffel tower!

After checking out the queue for tickets to go to the top of the Eiffel Tower we had some advise that a night visit ticket has a shorter queue so, as we'd been to the middle level during the day with the boys in 1996, we thought a night visit might be good.

With our plans changed we decided on a river cruise and as you can buy a two day ticket for only a little more than a one day ticket we thought it might come in handy as a river taxi. It works like the open top tours at Oxford, hop on - hop off. We had a great day on the river.

We stopped off at Notre Dame and were very privileged to be allowed to walk around during a service. There were hundreds of people there. The cathedral is magnificent.

From the river and from the square

Photos were allowed but we chose not to use a flash

Some of the amazing detail outside the cathedral

After a stroll around the streets near Notre Dame we hopped back on the boat for Jardin des Plantes, a huge complex which includes a small zoo and natural history museum etc. With aching feet a stroll through the gardens was all we could manage for the visit so it was back on the boat heading for home.

Jardin des Plantes

During our cruising on the Seine we travelled several times under a beautiful bridge called the Alexandre 111. The paint work and gold leaf sculptures on the bridge were magnificent.

The beauty of the bridge is obvious. There are four pillars each with beautiful gilt bronze statutes of Fames looking out of the city. The detail above the centre arch is The Nyphmes of the Seine

This stunning night shot of the Pont du Alexandre111 was taken by Dimitri Destugues

It was interesting to see just how busy the river is and not just with tour boats taking visitors like ourselves from one place to the next. There was a constant procession of working boats and barges transporting goods along the river. With so much traffic on the river there was a lot of care taken by the boat captains.

Two barges pictured ploughing through the water totally weighed down with their cargo of sand and gravel

Next day we jumped on the Open Top Bus for an historic tour of the city. The company we chose offers four tours in their price of 24 euros over two days. We thought this would be good to plan as we wanted to back in time for queueing for tickets to the Eiffel Tower and could continue with the other tours next day. Ah the stress of holidaying!

We 'did' the Grand City Tour first to get a feeling for the city and where things are located which was great really. This tour took in the Church La Madeleine with 52 columns around it, which was started in 1764 but for various reasons was not completed until 1842. For more on this interesting church go to: http://www.aviewoncities.com/paris/madeleine It is near the Place de la Concorde which is an amazing space.

Musee D'orsay

Other places included Opera Garnier, Musee du Louvre, Notre Dame, Musee D'orsay, l'Arc de Triomphe, the Trocadero, the Eiffel Tower and the Hotel des Invalides, like our repatriation hospital for war veterans.

The Hotel des Invalides has a beautiful gold gilt dome

Our next hop off was near the Arc de Triomphe which looked fantastic as it has recently been completely restored at great expense of course. We braved the 283 steps - very steep - for a chance to see the magnificence of Paris and were not disappointed.

You've seen it before but perhaps not from the inside!

12 roads radiate from the Arc du Triomphe so you can imagine how busy the 'roundabout' gets

The Arc de Triomphe was started in 1808 and honours those who fought and died for France in the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, with the names of all French victories and generals inscribed on its inner and outer surfaces.

Beneath its vault lies the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier from World War I with its eternal flame.

One of the funny things that happened was when on the river, Laurie helped a guy who was taking a photo of his mate, by untangling the French flag which hung from the rear of the boat. The guy in his best French said "Merci" and Laurie in his best Australian English said "No worries mate". The guy broke up and said "Oh geez where are you from?" Laurie told him. Of course Laurie knew he was Australian because we had heard them talking earlier. The guy was from Ballarat! It was a hoot.

One of things not seen in Australia any more except in travelling shows is Carousels. They are quite the thing in Paris with many of them, even in small towns. These were in the square in front of the Hotel de Ville near Notre Dame. They are just beautiful and the kids love them.

To come shortly - Mont Matre plus dining out in Paris without having to ring home for an overdraft