Paris, 29 June 10.30pm
Once the rain cleared I walked to Ile de la Cite and past Notre Dame. As a 15 year old I climbed the stairs to the top of Notre Dame and then climbed out onto the roof and stood holding onto one of the metal spires at the top. Somewhere I have a photo of this. These days the roof is surrounded in razor wire.
Later on today I was told that the best icecream in Paris is to be found nearby. Shame I didn't know that at 10am this morning.
My first real adventure of the day was catching Le Metro, by myself. I was to meet some colleagues at our offices in La Defense the (mini) skyscraper district to the West of central Paris.
The centrepiece of La Defense is the Grande Arche, an enormous marble square-shaped arch which was extremely difficult to photograph up close. Think ultra modern Arc de Triomphe.
With unpredictable Paris traffic I was advised to take the Metro. Too Easy. After lunch I was advised that the quickest way to get to our other offices near the Arc de Triomphe was by RER - the high speed express Metro. Am now officially adept at Le Metro. It took 15 minutes to get from La Defense to our meeting place via two metro lines, a trip which may have taken 30 minutes by taxi in lunchtime traffic.
After our afternoon meeting we went to the Cafe Palais Royale in the 1er arrondissement for dinner. Driving down Rue St Honore I was disappointed that with late opening times I wouldn't get a chance to check out all the boutiques before I have to leave tomorrow morning.
Leaving the restaurant was still perfectly light at 10pm. It is now 10.30pm and twilight has just descended.
Tomorrow, the Musee D'Orsay and then off to our global seminar outside Paris.
8 comments:
Well M you are clearly a lot smarter than me. Admittedly on my first time in the Metro I spent half an hour changing stations trying to work out the French word for exit. When I did I was hopelessly lost but I thankfully found a taxi and have stuck with them and a trusty map ever since. Sortie! Pretty much the limit of my French (other than expetives in multiple languages).
I can do Oui, Non, Je ne sais pais? Parlaz (sp?) vous francais? and... merde!
So disappointing about the boutiques. But your wallet will thank you. And your contactor as you can use the money you saved on reno work. I bet Paris is lovely this time of year.
Isn't La Defense weird and wonderful - not something you expect to see in Paris.
SOunds like you've mastered the metro. Next time I go to Paris I'm taking you with me.
Maybe you should try one of the Velo bikes....
Ha! I thought about trying the bikes (especially when I was on a never ending walk this morning) but Paris traffic is crazy and it seems that bike lanes are optional for use by cars, bikes, busses and people.
Oh Simon, the metro may have its disadvantages but taxis are so slow in the traffic.
What a wonderful time you're having and reading your post, I can tell by the way French is just slipping off your tongue that it's coming on by leaps and bounds. The trick is to slip back into English when you get home. After a summer in Italy, many years ago, someone spoke to me in French, in a petrol station in France en route home and I replied in Italian before I realised. What a fool I felt!
M, the metro is wonderful - if you know how to get out! Much better than the Underground but still to be avoided late unless you like talking to speeding anarchists wishing to redistribute your wealth quickly. Just arrived in Perth via Dubai and Rome. Dubai airport doesn't quite measure up to HK for me. But the health spa is good. Rome is Rome - nothing works no-one cares just make sure you have one of the coffees - always to die for. Toursm has been way down everywhere I stopped over the last 6 weeks (i had predicted a downturn last year but it didn't really happen in Europe). Some of the ports we stopped at we could not get a berth last May and this year in mid-June we were told we were the only large boat they had seen that month! How is Paris travelling social unrest and business environment wise? Greece was very depressed, Italy Malta and Croatia I found to be worried but doing ok. Plenty of bargains though. With Ale's help was getting 40% off before the sales from the big names on Via Condotti - apparently they never do that. Might be a heads up to try the shopping again. Give my apologies to Firestarter if I have just dropped him in it.
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