Barb and Baden’s Excellent French Adventure – Part 4
I was asked how many people are getting this journal. The number is now at 51 people and it has grown with every trip for the past 2 years. It is being sent to 5 countries outside of Canada from Germany to Indonesia.
Our adventures continues as we prepare to leave Nice for Paris…
Oct. 17, 2002: When leaving Nice, we were treated to a huge rain storm but we luck enough to only see any rain on the day that we arrived and departed the Cote d’Azure. Every other day had been perfectly warm weather suitable for touring the area. As I had mentioned earlier, we had booked our flight from Nice to Paris via the discount airline EasyJet. As the flight costs were a ridiculously low $30 / person, we weren’t sure what to expect from them. The one thing that was unique that EasyJet did to save costs was that there was no assigned seating. This meant that you had a boarding pass but no seat assignment. We arrived in Paris about 90 minutes later and we had plans on taking the train/Metro to our hotel. Since we have good roller luggage, we figured that it would be simple navigating through the Metro. To our dismay, we discovered that hauling two moderately heavy pieces of luggage through the Metro involved going up and down several hundred stairs. It seems that Paris has no provisions for wheelchairs on their transit system as *every* station has dozens of stairs going up and down. We arrived at our hotel which is about 100 metres from the Metro station. After dropping of our luggage, we took advantage of our location and walked about 3 blocks to the Eiffel tower. It was slightly raining when we went on our first visit to the tower but it did not diminish the impact of seeing what may be the most known landmark in the world. On par with seeing the Coliseum in Rome, it was a breathtaking moment and we knew that we truly had arrived in Paris at that instant. The next morning, we were treated to bright sunshine and did a tour of our immediate area around our hotel. We were to discover no fewer than about 20 boulangeries (bakeries) within a 10 minute walk. There was literally one every 10 or 15 doors. Oct. 18, 2002: As we explored Paris throughout the next several days, we noticed that abundance of dogs that people had in every area of the city. This was very evident on all of the sidewalks in Paris (and Nice) as it was obvious that picking up after your dog was unheard of in France. The possession of a dog in Paris was obviously treated very highly as dogs were always taking into restaurants and stores with their owners. Driving in Paris is somewhat of a full contact sport and traffic laws only seems to be considered as mere suggestions. Parking especially is quite interesting to see as no part of the streets (like the corners and parts of intersections) were wasted in being used for parking. Since there are many very small cars here (like the Smart car), parking at odd angles and around corners seemed to be very easy to do. Unlike in Nice, getting around in Paris is very easy to do using the Metro and it has extended the distance that we can cover in a day to pretty much the whole city. We purchased a week pass and this has given us unlimited Metro travel so we use it whenever we need. Today we took the Metro to the Arc de Triomphe and then walked down one of the most famous streets in the world: the Champs Elysees. The Arc de Triomphe has 12 streets that meet here and circle the Arc. There is an underground tunnel that allows you to get to the Arc from the street as it is in the middle of all of the traffic. There is a quote in one of our travel books that you would be crazy to try and get to the Arc by walking across the street as “death would be certain”. For dinner that night we were treated to a fabulous duck dinner. We have found that we are now eating dinner later and later. Dinner for us now begins no earlier than 9:30 and we are usually finishing after 11PM. Dinners must be done slowly and never rushed – an experience to be enjoyed. No matter how crowded the restaurant, the waiter will never pressure you to leave. Speaking of waiters, we are still to experience any snooty French waiters even in Paris. There have been several times when the waiter obviously knew no (or little) English and we have never had any problems communicating or receiving very friendly service. Our feeling is that it is only in circumstances where a person expects service in English that the famed French attitude comes on display. Oct. 19, 2002: This morning we visited the famous Notre Dame cathedral with it’s beautiful stained glass windows inside. The rest of the day we spent shopping in the many department stores on Blvd. Haussmann. Barb bought this blouse from a store and she told me the story of how the clerk (with many people waiting in line for service) patiently wrapped the blouse in tissue paper then sprayed some perfume on the tissue paper before putting it in the bag. Barb has already given me notice that she wants at least 2 more days to shop before we leave. To put it mildly, Paris is a shopper’s paradise with so many stores and selection. That day for lunch, we went to a restaurant for a pizza and we had a famous Parisian topping on it: egg. Now I’m not talking about a boiled egg sliced but a soft-yolk egg in the middle of the pizza. When I first read about this it didn’t sound too appetizing but it was actually extremely tasty. I have learned to never discount the French for coming up with something that tastes good but sounds odd at first glance. Oct. 20, 2002: This morning we visited a street called Rue Cler where there was a street market with all kinds of produce and groceries. As we had seen before, many of the locals were there buying there groceries from these stores and taking it home in their large cloth bags or 2-wheeled pull carts. On another street, I saw this store that had a selection of the pull carts all lined up like cars in a car dealership. No doubt the French traded in their old cart for a newer model every few years. We went back to the Champs Elysees today to seek out the Hotel George V (pronounced “George sank”). This hotel is supposed to be the most expensive in Paris and rooms can be had for between $3,000 and $8,000 a night. We toured the lobby and briefly considered having lunch there but decided to save the hundred or so Euros and go elsewhere. The final installment of our journal will be published later this week. Stay tuned … Barb and Baden Continue on to Barb & Baden’s Excellent French Adventure – Final
When we got on board, I saw a guy with an EasyJet shirt and jeans (whom I assumed to be a maintenance person) and he told me that we could just sit anywhere we wanted to. I later found out that the “maintenance guy” was one of the flight attendants. EasyJet money-savings scheme #2: crew get cheap EasyJet shirts and wear but street pants on board. Expensive and good looking uniforms are therefore eliminated.