Paris

Saturday, 9 July

K had noticed an advertisement for a weekend trip to Paris in the newspaper earlier in the week and told me about it so I had gone ahead and paid for the girls and I and he made the bookings.

G took us to the bus station for a 6.30am start. An ordinary city bus took us to the outskirts of Aachen to a collection point where a tour bus waited for us. The commentary from the bus driver was in German but in a thick accent that sounded almost like Flemish. Luckily I understood most of it, particularly the important bits like what time to meet back at the bus, etc! It took until 1pm to reach Paris through fairly ordinary scenery and a couple of toilet stops on the way at what I can only describe as developed rest areas – NZ doesn’t have them – buildings with toilets and shops but no petrol stations.

On arrival we went first to the hotel which stood on the Seine. The room was fairly big and we had time to freshen up before setting out on a tour of Paris (I hadn’t realised this was included so it saved the hassle of public transport).

The sky threatened rain so it was quite dark, but I took a lot of photos. It was exciting to see the first glimpse of the Eiffel tower, Notre Dame and the many grandiose buildings. Paris is a place of opulence and splendid vistas. Much more impressive than my last visit in a dismal wet winter many years ago. We paid a little extra for a boat tour down the Seine (which was longer and more satisfying than the tour down the Thames). The weather cleared and we then had 3 hours’ free time to do as we wished.

[photos to come]

We were dropped off near Montmartre so I took the girls up through the winding streets to Sacre Couer, remembering the same route from years ago (to my surprise). Lots of souvenir shops of course, but this is what the girls wanted. C got asthma so couldn’t make it all the way up to see inside the Sacre Couer and no photos were allowed inside. A great pity. However, a great view from there. There was a wonderful shop full of exotic clothing which would have been brilliant for belly dancing if I had been doing it at the time!

We had a bite to eat at the local McDonalds (sacrilege I know – blame C). Made our way back to the meeting point and were picked up at 8.15 pm. If we’d had more time we could have looked in one of the big department stores nearby (I just didn’t know it was so close!) The sun was hot now. We had another bus tour of opulent buildings and past upmarket shops, and a closer look at the Eiffel Tower. No time to join the long queue and go to the top, but just soaked in the atmosphere and evening sun. Back to the hotel where we ate our snacks we’d bought at a supermarket.