Paris Go

Hello Virtual Fellow Travellers,

Rest assured that we have not fallen off the edge of France nor got bored with blogging. It's been hard as we have crammed so much into our short stay starting at 6am and not finishing until late evening that we would fall into bed too pooped to do anything but Le sleep!

So to bring you up to speed I will send through a number of bloggs about beautiful Paris and to better set the scene for you all I will say is that we have arrived on the Aoilean island of Salina, it's  29 degrees here, everywhere we look we see the Mediterranean sea and we have a horizon pool at our disposal and the best Italian food, beer and wine - so in  this extremely tough environment, we can share the joys of Paris together! A glass of Prosecco par fa vore!

Our day started when we headed to look inside Notre Dame and there was a beautiful female choir singing in this magnificent place, accompanied by a very dramatic organ. This was a pretty specie place and unlike the English, the French don't charge the general public to get in - for the case of ongoing restoration costs we think this is a sorely missed opportunity even if it's a well intentioned stance about access for all people's. From there we headed around the side to queue to head up to the bell tower but 40 mins into our wait and only a few meters forward thought this not the best use of our time when gorgeous peach pastries awaited us on the Isle of Louis which I might add, has the BEST ice-cream in the entire universe known and unknown. Siobhan had one the day before called "caramel beurre salle" which means caramel butter salt. Trust me it was nothing short of brilliant. The brand is called Berthillion and it's only made on the Isle St Louis which. Is one of the small islands in the middle of the City.

After this  we had seen  the Champs Élysées the outside of the Louvre, Le Jardins du Tulieries and we headed to the base of the Tour Eiffel. In the setting sun this engineering feat looked simply stunning. It was simultaneously delicate and powerful. From there we jumped on a boat and did a trip up and down the Seine viewing the aptly named City of Lights in all it's glory. The immediate city of Paris is so beautifully preserved that if you were to see a couple of people in high white wigs and pastels satins wandering down the street and telling us peasants to eat cake,  it would not look remotely out of place.

By this stage we were bonjour-ing and au revoir-ing like natives.  The French are funny, engaging, wickedly sarcastic and droll. My kinda people! We found their metro and RER train networks a breeze. They receive a pretty bad wrap as far as we are concerned and despite their penchant for smoking anytime anywhere, they were just charming and there is no dog poo anywhere! The shopping here is just too fabulous to talk about (except in blogs following) and as I close I will make this observation. Coffee in England was shite. Coffee in Paris was a bit better but still not great - here's hoping when we get to Italy that it improves. I think we are very spoilt in Melbourne. But the diversity of the population in Paris is just brilliant. They are a fantastic example (as is London) of a very rich multicultural city.


Lots And Bon soir


K & S






Sent from my iPad



Sent from my iPad