Travel Blog – 18^th April 2023

It’s funny how life works. Four years ago, someone in China chowed down on a bat, and stopped us from travelling outside Australia. Following months of isolation, zoom dinner parties, desperate searches for RAT test kits and four vaccinations, we finally find ourselves travelling back to Europe! Welcome to my first international blog since 2019!

First stop: the City of Love: Paris, France! We flew into Paris to meet Ian, Carmel, Rob and Caitlynne. Ian and Carmel left a week before us to check out the UK, and before they left, Lidia insisted that Carmel not take any white clothing with her. She does have a track record of throwing her food all over herself while eating, so this was sound advice. Carmel, however, didn’t listen and wore a white shirt on the plane. Lidia quickly messaged her saying “That will be interesting and entertaining!” Well, Carmel managed to survive the flight unsoiled, so good on her! Then, in an hilarious twist of irony, guess who wore a white shirt on our flight? That’s right: Lidia. And guess who spilt red wine on said white shirt about 5 minutes after take-off? Again: Lidia. She then proceeded to stick her finger through her shirt, poking a hole right through it. But it was all good, she spot cleaned the wine out of it and used a hotel sewing kit to darn the hole.

Anyway, after the usual gruelling flight of 14.5 hours to Doha, a 3.5 hour stopover, then 7 more hours to Paris, we finally arrived. Traffic was insane from the airport to our hotel in the latin quarter, so it took another hour and a half to arrive at our hotel, where we soon after met up with all of our friends.

We all wasted no time in sampling French reds, going straight to a wine bar near our hotel. Our friends filled us in on their trips so far, which had already involved Ian and Carmel riding bicycles through sleet and ice in Scotland for two days without gloves (frostbite, much?) and Ian destroying a 600 year old stone wall that was probably built by the Romans. Apparently, he was “fixing” it by adjusting the capstone and an entire section of wall collapsed. Oops.

After our wine, we strolled through Saint Germain, enjoying the atmosphere. The usual Parisian café culture is alive and well. The place was buzzing and we enjoyed watching a bunch of jazz musicians busking on the way to our dinner reservation.

We dined at a typical Parisian restaurant call Le Deux Magots. Don’t worry, apparently it doesn’t mean “The Two Maggots” in English, but rather “The two Chinese figurines” because it used to be a novelty shop. The restaurant took over the site in 1914 and was a favourite hangout for artists and thinkers, including Ernest Hemingway and Pablo Picasso.

After dinner, Ian and Rob went off to enjoy a couple of bourbons in a bar and we crashed, having been surviving on very little sleep.

The next day was huge. I created my own walking tour of Paris and we started at Place du Trocadero, enjoying the incredible view of the Eiffel tower from there before walking over the road to ascend the tower. We first met a tour guide who gave us some history before we entered the iron lady. We were perplexed to hear that it takes three years to paint the Eiffel, when it took two years to paint it when it was first built. Apparently, they still use very narrow brushes to paint it. Obviously, the French haven’t heard of spray guns.

Caitlynne and Carmel are both uncomfortable with heights, so Ian questioning the structural integrity of the footings before we got onto the elevator probably didn’t help them any. Nor did Rob pointing out how rusty some of the beams were while we were shooting up the equivalent of a 71 story building.

After enjoying the expansive views of Paris from the second floor and the top floor, we descended and continued Scott’s walking tour. We walked 10.5 kilometres, taking in the Arc di Triomphe, walking the full length of the Champs d’Elysees to the Place de la Concorde, then through the Touleries gardens to the Louvre, then over the Pont de Neuf to our hotel.

Of course, we had to buy the obligatory berets so that we looked properly French and blended in with the natives.

The tour went almost without incident, except for one minor issue where I walked across the busy Champs D’Elysees against the walking signal (I swear it was green when I started) and almost got run over by a car. The driver leaned on his horn, then leant out of his window and shouted something in French. I don’t speak French, but I’m pretty sure it translated to “My friend! I fear for your safety. Please be careful!” Or something to that effect.

After a short rest at our hotel, we took taxis to a food walking tour in the South Marais area of Paris. Talk about carb overload. We started with a baguette, a croissant and a choux pastry before we even left the meeting point! Along the way we sampled chocolate and gathered more baguettes, eclairs and a variety of cheeses from a cheese store before settling into the ancient cellar of a wine shop to eat our feast with champagne and French wine. We sampled about ten cheeses, mostly unpasteurised with a variety of goat, sheep and cow’s milk. There was only one that I didn’t thoroughly enjoy. And the champagne and wines were amazing as well. In a perfect example of flogging a dead horse, Lidia decided to wear the infamous white shirt that she wore on the plane. She bit into her éclair and squirted chocolate custard all over the front of it.

The tour was led by the lovely Deniz and besides our group there were two Americans with us. After a couple of wines, Ian found his true form and began imparting his wisdom on the group. He began by telling Deniz that the Aussies saved the arses of the French a couple of times due to their tendency to “run away”. Despite Carmel’s pleas to “Stop….Stop…STOP”,  he didn’t stop. He then postulated on the reasons for accents, putting it down to the shape of people’s mouths. He turned to the Americans on the tour and said: “Do you know that the Aussies call the Americans loud-mouthed yanks? It’s because of the size of their mouths, which need to be large so that you can say “Y’all” properly.” Our new friends were from Chicago, not the deep south, but didn’t appear to be too insulted, although they made their excuses and left shortly after.

There was no need for dinner that night, although certainly a need for more wine, so after one or two drinks sourced from the ancient wine cellar, we again crashed early.

The next morning, after the obligatory coffee and croissant for breakfast, we walked the short distance from our hotel to the Louvre museum. We had booked the 9:00 tickets, first cab off the rank, which turned out to be a great idea, because we didn’t need to wait long to get into the museum and wait in the line to see the Mona Lisa, Da Vinci’s famous painting. We explored the Louvre for the next couple of hours, then took off for another personal walking tour, this time up to Sacre Coeur in the Montmartre district. On the way we stopped for lunch at an historical shopping mall, le Galerie Lafayette. They have amazing views over Paris from a terrace on the roof and the mall is centred over a magnificent, historical stained glass dome. It is truly spectacular.

We then walked past Moulin Rouge to Montmartre. We checked out the local artists in the square, then walked to Sacre Coeur, enjoying the expansive views across Paris from the top of the hill.

That evening we booked dinner at a little French bistro near our hotel, before embarking on a special tour through Paris in a 1938 Citroen. Our driver, Laurent, was very informative and drove us to the most spectacular attractions of Paris, stopping illegally in each place to take the most incredible photographs. The Citroen was fantastic, although Laurent explained that it needs a new engine every year! It had an enormous sunroof that he asked the three people in the back of the car to stand up in for each of the photographs, while the person in the front seat got out of the car. This method was fine when Ian was in the back because he just popped up between the girls like a jack in the box. The issues began when Ian and I swapped positions. Despite trying various different techniques, (eg. You stand up first, turn sideways and slide into the corner, then Carmel will stand up there and I’ll squeeze in the gap), we failed in spectacular fashion. Lidia shoved her bum into my guts, winding me at one stop. At another, I snapped my spine on the edge of the sunroof while Carmel smacked me in the face, then elbowed our driver in the head. It was like the three stooges on vacation.

To top off the night, we drove past a statue of Joan of Arc, Laurent explaining that she was burned at the stake. Ian turned to him and mournfully enquired “Why did you do that?” as if Laurent personally poured petrol on her and threw a match in her face.

Despite our keystone cops routine, we had the best time on the tour and the illegal photographs turned out incredible. The highlight was Laurent singing Champs D’Elysees while driving up the famous Parisian avenue to the Arc di Triomphe.

The following day, Lidia and I sent the kids off to see Versailles and stayed in Paris. We went to the Blue Train for lunch, which is a restaurant based in the Paris Gare de Lyon train station that looks like it belongs in a palace, with ornate murals and statues throughout. It was created for the Paris Exposition in 1900 and designated as an historical monument in 1972. It was like stepping back in time with waiters dressed like bellhops and meals prepared on trolleys next to your table. It was the best meal we’ve had in a long time.

After our friends returned from their day in Versailles, we all went down to the river and boarded a dinner cruise down the Seine. This was a farewell Paris cruise as it was our last night here! The food was fantastic and the views of Paris by night magnificent. We passed the Eiffel tower all lit up and then turned around and passed it again. We even passed a miniature statue of liberty, which was gifted to Paris by American expatriates on the 100^th anniversary of the French revolution and faces west towards her big sister in New York.

The funniest moment of the night was when Carmel tried to take a selfie photo of our table and forgot to turn the phone around, blinding the people on the next table with her flash and taking a photo of them instead!

After the cruise we returned to the hotel and said our goodbyes to Rob and Caitlynne. They were to drive up to Normandy the next day and the rest of us are off to the Champagne region!