On Tuesday night after we finished our blog entry we checked the weather forecast for the next few days only to discover there was no improvement on the horizon, well the next few days anyway, a strategy meeting was required. It was always our intention to stop somewhere on the Loire and catch the train up to Paris so why not from Angers. Armed with this thought yet another cunning plan was hatched. We then got on the Net found that the TGV (super fast train) runs direct to Paris from here so we booked a hotel in Paris and committed ourselves to an excursion.
Morning came and with some impatience waited for the 9am opening of the campground office to ask about locking our bikes away, which they did, then we caught a taxi into the train station. It is at each of these stages that a mini-adventure takes place, the English/French conversation to book/order/purchase things and this was our first train ticket so Sandy had to learn lots of new words.
We boarded the train at 10:30 and arrived in Paris at 12:00 having got up to speeds of 220kph (according to my GPS).
This was the fastest train we'd been on and a very good way to get around the country. From the train, given we hadn't eaten since our porridge at 7am, we went to the first brasserie and had a wonderful lunch over a glass of red. From there we meandered our way to the hotel through the Parisian backstreets and the Jardin du Luxemburg. From the start we were loving Paris, the buildings, the streets, alleyways and cafe culture, it surpassed expectation.
At the hotel we got into a very small elevator, it was rated for four people but even three would have to be very very good friends.
Once at the room, it wasn't much of an improvement, nice but small with definitely a 'knees up' bath. From our window though we had enchanting rooftop views and even a glimpse of that bloody tower (more on that later).
We left our bag in the room and headed for the Seine River and made our way to the Musee d'Orsay to see some 'real' art. We both took Art all through our high school years and it was a bit inspiring to see, in the flesh, the pieces we studied from books. The only slight negative was even though it's not quite the tourist season the amount of people did take away from the experience a little.
After the museum we studied the map and the tower, which we thought we'd better at least get a photo of, looked like it was not too far away. 40 minutes later and after already walking around all afternoon we arrived with very sore feet and to be hassled by hawkers trying to sell us tacky mini Eiffel Towers. Obligatory photo taken, we then made our way back to the hotel (walking as we missed the metro station) with the intention of having dinner somewhere near our room.
We decided that even though we were in the heart of French culture we would have pizza, don't ask we just felt like pizza and a beer so we found an 'authentic' French Pizzeria, had a couple of beers and very nice pizza. We meet Phillipe a local of Brazilian descent and had a great chat as he spoke excellent English.
The next morning we went down for typical French breakfast, coffee (Sandy had tea), croissant, baguette and jam. We then headed off to Montmartre via the metro (underground railway).
Montmarte was wonderful with all the painters but again slightly spoiled by the bloody tourists, ha ha yes I know we are tourists. It was still pretty cool to walk to streets where Van Gogh, Monet and Picasso hung out. Anyway we then walked around the back streets and to tell the truth we both enjoyed seeing this side of Paris more than the mainstream tourist attractions.
We then caught the metro again to the Arc de Triomphe on the Champs-Élysées and literally popped our head out of the metro station as it was right there, took the photo then like gophers bobbed back down the hole to head toward our next stop.
We're not sure why we went to the Catacombs but some sense of the macabre must have been at play but we did and we can both say that it was the weirdest, unusual and most alarming experience yet......ever!! You pay your money then you descend down a spiral stone staircase for what seems an age. You then enter a dark system of tunnels that were once mined for the stone that was used in the buildings of Paris. After walking about 500m along a network of dimly lit tunnels
right under the Paris streets we then came across thousands upon thousand of bones and skulls all neatly stacked along the walls of the tunnels.
We exited some 700m from were we entered and both just shook our heads and started to make our way to the train station. On the way we stopped for a gelati - the best ever!, but I'm sure it's status may change once we get to Italy.
So it was to the train and our journey back to our home/tent in Angers. It wasn't until we were on the train that we realised we had spent our third wedding anniversary in Pairs, couldn't have planned it better even if we tried.
1 comment:
Happy Anniversary!! Unbelieveable with no prior plannning you spend it in Paris......Such a cool place isn't it though not sure "cool" describes the Catacombs - very Pol Pot.
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