Paris, December 2010, long...
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Paris was the second stop in our 7 week long European holiday after depositing youngest daughter ('Ms16') with her French host family from Macon, where she attended school for the duration.
We've been there a few times before and love the city despite small annoyances like unwanted attention from pick-pockets on the RER trains and the Métro. In past visits we stayed at the Familia Hotel in the Latin Quarter. It's a clean, friendly family-run 2 star hotel in a great location but our rooms have always been tiny, which isn't unusual for an old Parisian 2 star hotel.
This time we thought we'd splurge a bit and try their sister hotel next door, the Minerve Hotel, a 3 star hotel, and booked on-line. It too is a clean, friendly, family-run hotel and despite everything else being excellent, the room too was very small. It was advertised as a 'double classic' room on the Internet booking form, and it turned-out to be one of the two smallest rooms on our floor. As the hotel wasn't very busy, and rooms were available, having a larger room would have been nice. We'd stay there again, but would ask for a room large enough to open two suitcases.
Paris was cold. It snowed but not enough to disrupt our plans. But cold, cold, cold! We walked fast!
In an earlier post I explained how Ms16 lost her purse on one of our flights to France. The Cathay Pacific ground staff found the purse and forwarded it to Paris CDG airport for us to collect later. I'll spare you the gory details but have to say that although I almost never get angry when dealing with a challenge, this was an exception. Usually it's my good wife who can turn-on indignation when required, usually resulting in resolution of the problem in her favour. This time she was consoling me!
It had nothing to do with the Cathay Pacific staff as they were great once they came on duty in the airport (if there are no flights in or out of the airport by a specific carrier then their staff aren't there until a few hours before travellers would normally be expected.) But trying to get assistance from an airport information desk woman was very frustrating as we walked here there and everywhere at her instruction trying to find a certain something. We could have been on an orienteering exercise! The Paris airport should acknowledge the perseverance that we had to demonstrate by awarding us merit badges, something like, 'I got my lost luggage back from Paris CDG!!!'
Continuing the tradition that we started in Lyon of eating well we had lunch 123m above the ground at restaurant Le Jules Verne in/on? the Eiffel Tower. I booked and paid a deposit via the Internet before leaving Adelaide. The deposit would be forfeited if we didn't show-up at our appointed time. The Métro got us close to the Tower, and as we walked the short distance to it, past all the Africans selling small metal Eiffel Towers, umbrellas, and tea towels, we saw signs outside the ticket windows saying the 'monument was on strike'.
I thought, 'great, our one day that we can do this and the darned thing is on strike. But how does a building or structure 'go on strike'? But it wasn't a problem as the restaurant has its own private lift which was running fine. As you'd expect, the dining experience was lovely, and quite memorable. Excellent food and wine, and Beth was very impressed with the place-holding plates set on the table then elegantly removed as our lunch-laden plates were delivered.
After the meal we had to inspect our respective genders' toilets, on strong recommendation from friends who had been to the Jules Verne before us. Beth found them more impressive than I did, perhaps as there's only so much that an establishment can do in dressing-up the functional aspects of a loo. What impressed me, but not Beth, was seeing the structure of the Tower up close, including the pulleys and mechanisms of the lifts. Boys's stuff.
As we left the Eiffel Tower the French mounted police made a token raid on the Africans, sending the running everywhere, until two police cornered one of them and led him away to face the charge of selling really tacky crap in Paris. I expect the others were back at their spreads selling the little towers, umbrellas and other junk within 15 minutes of the police leaving.
Before we left Adelaide I bought a small lapel pin that showed both the French and Australian flags on it. Whenever I've been to France previously my American accent was immediately noticeable and sometimes resulted in others automatically assuming I possessed the worst characteristics of American tourists. I thought by wearing this lapel pin it would indicate that I was from Australia and positively predisposed to things French. Hah! That backfired! I first wore it when we had lunch at the restaurant Paul Bocuse in Lyon and later into the meal Monsieur Bocuse walked through the restaurant stopping at each table to meet and greet the guests. Except for our table where he looked at us then walked-onto the next table. Was it because we didn't down our utensils and rise to our feet to greet him quickly enough, or was it because his 86 year old eyesight misread my lapel pin as being British! Which could be worse than being American in France!
We don't know, and after politely requesting a chance to meet the great chef he did come to our table for a Kodak moment and handshaking. But that was back in Lyon.
I'm strongly leaning to the first explanation: that the lapel pin looks British rather than Australian, because of a separate experience at our next big lunch, at Le Jules Verne, where I also wore the pin as seen in the photo above. Once seated at our table a very proper English waiter in the restaurant came to our table and greeted us, saying something like 'Ah, very good to one wearing the colours!' apparently also mistaking the wee Aussie flag for the Union Jack. After all, it largely is the Union Jack. I think the now recurring public discussion in Australia about adopting a new flag is timely. And I have forever retired my misleading lapel pin.
One day in Paris we walked to some sights that we hadn't seen before like L'Hôtel national des Invalides where Napoleon's tomb is located. I'll certainly say that the French delight in 'monumenting' their heroes. But life goes-on despite famous tombs, and cold weather. It didn't stop these gentlemen from their regular boules meeting:
The tombs inside are amazing.
We weren't allowed to take photos of the Henry Moore retrospective at the Musée Rodin but it was a good visit. The Rodin bronzes in the gardens are great to walk through but we'd done that on a previous visit. The Moore retrospective included a recreation of his studio, showing works in progress. I'd never seen some of his very large plaster works from which the bronzes were taken. How he made the sculpts for the large, lovely bronzes never occurred to me. But having made 6 small cast bronze sculptures last year for an exhibition I've now got a better appreciation for the process.
Since our last Paris visit Beth really wanted to see one of the big dancing shows like The Lido, or The Moulin Rouge. So we booked a drinks/show package one night for The Lido on recommendations from Adelaide friends. They obviously saw a different performance than we did as ours was a major disappointment. I think it was their revue called 'Bonheur' that tried to show the best of all previous revues. Sadly, it was a 100 Euro per person flop, and we were sitting in the nose-bleed area seated perpendicular to the stage, sharing our table with (a lovely) couple from Vienna or Berlin.
The Lido show designer succeeded in creating a 'kitchen sink' production that just threw everything they had at the audience: 23 sets that included a 5 metre Indian temple, an 80,000 litre water pool, and even an ice skating rink! Add to that 600 costumes. The ice skater fell down, one of the female leads couldn't sing in tune, the dancers were out of step, and there was a guy who's speciality was juggling large bobbins on a string between two sticks - a little of that goes a long way!
As we sat side-on to the show our legs started cramping, and the two middle eastern guys sitting in the booth next to us wouldn't shut-up despite multiple glares from us. The only time they did stop talking was when the topless dancers came on stage. But, we can tick 'The Lido' off our bucket list. But there was a funny comedian who added some value to the experience.
Since making the small bronzes I developed an appreciation for using nice wax-working tools, which I haven't been able to find to buy in Adelaide. Maybe the larger cities sell them, but I wasn't able to find them on the web either in Australia. So while in Paris we visited a fine arts supply store and I asked about wax-working tools, which that store didn't handle. But the first store directed me to a wonderful store called 'Adam' near the Métro Jules Joffrin station, on rue Damremont. I was like a kid in a candy store - so many beautiful tools.
- Stayed at the Minerve Hotel in the Latin Quarter. Small room but everything else excellent.
- Returned to Paris CDG airport to retrieve Ms16's purse lost on our Melbourne-Hong Kong Cathay Pacific flight - impressive bureaucracy to overcome!
- Lunch at Restaurant le Jules Verne on the Eiffel Tower despite 'the monument is on strike'?
- Excellent Henry Moore retrospective at the Musée Rodin.
- Very disappointing show at The Lido.
- Exciting (for an artist) fine arts supply store in Paris called 'Adam'.
- Killing a few hours at Musée du Louvre while Beth shops.
- TGV train to Frankfurt breaks down, return to Paris...
Paris was the second stop in our 7 week long European holiday after depositing youngest daughter ('Ms16') with her French host family from Macon, where she attended school for the duration.
We've been there a few times before and love the city despite small annoyances like unwanted attention from pick-pockets on the RER trains and the Métro. In past visits we stayed at the Familia Hotel in the Latin Quarter. It's a clean, friendly family-run 2 star hotel in a great location but our rooms have always been tiny, which isn't unusual for an old Parisian 2 star hotel.
This time we thought we'd splurge a bit and try their sister hotel next door, the Minerve Hotel, a 3 star hotel, and booked on-line. It too is a clean, friendly, family-run hotel and despite everything else being excellent, the room too was very small. It was advertised as a 'double classic' room on the Internet booking form, and it turned-out to be one of the two smallest rooms on our floor. As the hotel wasn't very busy, and rooms were available, having a larger room would have been nice. We'd stay there again, but would ask for a room large enough to open two suitcases.
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| Paris - Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle - with snow |
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| There's a wife in here somewhere... |
In an earlier post I explained how Ms16 lost her purse on one of our flights to France. The Cathay Pacific ground staff found the purse and forwarded it to Paris CDG airport for us to collect later. I'll spare you the gory details but have to say that although I almost never get angry when dealing with a challenge, this was an exception. Usually it's my good wife who can turn-on indignation when required, usually resulting in resolution of the problem in her favour. This time she was consoling me!
It had nothing to do with the Cathay Pacific staff as they were great once they came on duty in the airport (if there are no flights in or out of the airport by a specific carrier then their staff aren't there until a few hours before travellers would normally be expected.) But trying to get assistance from an airport information desk woman was very frustrating as we walked here there and everywhere at her instruction trying to find a certain something. We could have been on an orienteering exercise! The Paris airport should acknowledge the perseverance that we had to demonstrate by awarding us merit badges, something like, 'I got my lost luggage back from Paris CDG!!!'
Continuing the tradition that we started in Lyon of eating well we had lunch 123m above the ground at restaurant Le Jules Verne in/on? the Eiffel Tower. I booked and paid a deposit via the Internet before leaving Adelaide. The deposit would be forfeited if we didn't show-up at our appointed time. The Métro got us close to the Tower, and as we walked the short distance to it, past all the Africans selling small metal Eiffel Towers, umbrellas, and tea towels, we saw signs outside the ticket windows saying the 'monument was on strike'.
 |
| The Eiffel Tower 'on strike'? Hunh? |
I thought, 'great, our one day that we can do this and the darned thing is on strike. But how does a building or structure 'go on strike'? But it wasn't a problem as the restaurant has its own private lift which was running fine. As you'd expect, the dining experience was lovely, and quite memorable. Excellent food and wine, and Beth was very impressed with the place-holding plates set on the table then elegantly removed as our lunch-laden plates were delivered.
 |
| Lunch at Le Jules Verne, Eiffel Tower. With lapel pin.. |
After the meal we had to inspect our respective genders' toilets, on strong recommendation from friends who had been to the Jules Verne before us. Beth found them more impressive than I did, perhaps as there's only so much that an establishment can do in dressing-up the functional aspects of a loo. What impressed me, but not Beth, was seeing the structure of the Tower up close, including the pulleys and mechanisms of the lifts. Boys's stuff.
As we left the Eiffel Tower the French mounted police made a token raid on the Africans, sending the running everywhere, until two police cornered one of them and led him away to face the charge of selling really tacky crap in Paris. I expect the others were back at their spreads selling the little towers, umbrellas and other junk within 15 minutes of the police leaving.
Before we left Adelaide I bought a small lapel pin that showed both the French and Australian flags on it. Whenever I've been to France previously my American accent was immediately noticeable and sometimes resulted in others automatically assuming I possessed the worst characteristics of American tourists. I thought by wearing this lapel pin it would indicate that I was from Australia and positively predisposed to things French. Hah! That backfired! I first wore it when we had lunch at the restaurant Paul Bocuse in Lyon and later into the meal Monsieur Bocuse walked through the restaurant stopping at each table to meet and greet the guests. Except for our table where he looked at us then walked-onto the next table. Was it because we didn't down our utensils and rise to our feet to greet him quickly enough, or was it because his 86 year old eyesight misread my lapel pin as being British! Which could be worse than being American in France!
We don't know, and after politely requesting a chance to meet the great chef he did come to our table for a Kodak moment and handshaking. But that was back in Lyon.
I'm strongly leaning to the first explanation: that the lapel pin looks British rather than Australian, because of a separate experience at our next big lunch, at Le Jules Verne, where I also wore the pin as seen in the photo above. Once seated at our table a very proper English waiter in the restaurant came to our table and greeted us, saying something like 'Ah, very good to one wearing the colours!' apparently also mistaking the wee Aussie flag for the Union Jack. After all, it largely is the Union Jack. I think the now recurring public discussion in Australia about adopting a new flag is timely. And I have forever retired my misleading lapel pin.
One day in Paris we walked to some sights that we hadn't seen before like L'Hôtel national des Invalides where Napoleon's tomb is located. I'll certainly say that the French delight in 'monumenting' their heroes. But life goes-on despite famous tombs, and cold weather. It didn't stop these gentlemen from their regular boules meeting:
 |
| Outside Les Invalides - boules |
The tombs inside are amazing.
 |
| Tomb within Les Invalides |
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| Napoleon Bonaparte's tomb - Les Invalides |
We weren't allowed to take photos of the Henry Moore retrospective at the Musée Rodin but it was a good visit. The Rodin bronzes in the gardens are great to walk through but we'd done that on a previous visit. The Moore retrospective included a recreation of his studio, showing works in progress. I'd never seen some of his very large plaster works from which the bronzes were taken. How he made the sculpts for the large, lovely bronzes never occurred to me. But having made 6 small cast bronze sculptures last year for an exhibition I've now got a better appreciation for the process.
Since our last Paris visit Beth really wanted to see one of the big dancing shows like The Lido, or The Moulin Rouge. So we booked a drinks/show package one night for The Lido on recommendations from Adelaide friends. They obviously saw a different performance than we did as ours was a major disappointment. I think it was their revue called 'Bonheur' that tried to show the best of all previous revues. Sadly, it was a 100 Euro per person flop, and we were sitting in the nose-bleed area seated perpendicular to the stage, sharing our table with (a lovely) couple from Vienna or Berlin.
The Lido show designer succeeded in creating a 'kitchen sink' production that just threw everything they had at the audience: 23 sets that included a 5 metre Indian temple, an 80,000 litre water pool, and even an ice skating rink! Add to that 600 costumes. The ice skater fell down, one of the female leads couldn't sing in tune, the dancers were out of step, and there was a guy who's speciality was juggling large bobbins on a string between two sticks - a little of that goes a long way!
As we sat side-on to the show our legs started cramping, and the two middle eastern guys sitting in the booth next to us wouldn't shut-up despite multiple glares from us. The only time they did stop talking was when the topless dancers came on stage. But, we can tick 'The Lido' off our bucket list. But there was a funny comedian who added some value to the experience.
Since making the small bronzes I developed an appreciation for using nice wax-working tools, which I haven't been able to find to buy in Adelaide. Maybe the larger cities sell them, but I wasn't able to find them on the web either in Australia. So while in Paris we visited a fine arts supply store and I asked about wax-working tools, which that store didn't handle. But the first store directed me to a wonderful store called 'Adam' near the Métro Jules Joffrin station, on rue Damremont. I was like a kid in a candy store - so many beautiful tools.
 |
| Loved it! 'I saved us so much money!' (I'm learning...) |
I returned to Adelaide with some fine, stainless steel tools that I hope to use once the cooler weather returns and working with wax is practical in an un-air conditioned studio/workshop.
One cold and wet day Beth determined that she had to visit certain shoe stores in Paris near the Louvre, so while she exercised shop assistants I visited a part of the Museum I hadn't been to before. The last time we were there we did the tourist thing of running-in the see the Mona Lisa, took a quick piccy, then ran-out, having 'done' the Louvre. Well, not really 'doing' the Louvre but we did see one of their most famous paintings, elbowing away the mainly Japanese visitors there that day.
So I wandered through the Cour Marly off the Louvre's Richelieu entrance where so much monumental statuary is placed. Oh wow! Wonderful carved marble works from the 16th century. I loved the spaciousness of the setting - nothing was crowded. But the French seem to do that very well - majestic use of space in public monuments.
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| Cour Marly in The Louvre |
While in the Louvre I had to visit the men's room and just before entering it a woman walked confidently out of it, smiled at me and responded to what must have been my questioning look by indicating that yes, it is a men's room, and that I should proceed. Then another woman walked-out as well and joined her friend. Again smiling at me as she shook the water off her hands. Okay, I didn't really wonder if they both spit while at the urinal, but it did remind me that Europeans are less hung-up on normal bodily things than Aussies, and certainly much more relaxed about it all than are Americans. It wasn't uncommon for a cleaner woman to walk into the men's while guys were writing their names in the urinals. No big deal. Not there.
And despite exhausting a shoe store assistant Beth didn't add to her luggage this time.
Our last task was to wake-up early enough to leave the hotel by taxi to get to the Paris Gare de l'Est, one of the 6 big SCNF train stations in Paris, to catch our TGV train to Frankfurt then a sleeper train from Frankfurt to Vienna. It had been snowing in Paris and I worried that the taxi would have difficulties getting to the station in time, but it wasn't an issue and we arrived about an hour before we had to. When travelling Beth is very tolerant of my oft repeated 'I'd rather be early than have all the stress from a late arrival,' comment. And I think that's one of the few things I can say to her that reliably generates a 'Yes dear' response. But only while travelling.
Can Australia's population really not support a high-speed rail link between the larger capital cities? It is a great way to travel - the stations are often in the city or closer to it than the airports are; you don't have big delays in security processing; and populations are increasing, fossil fuels are decreasing, people don't indicate that they want to travel less, and trains are not as affected by adverse weather as are airplanes and airports. High speed train travel is so practical and easy. I 'loved' it when compared with commuter air travel.
Before leaving for Europe we bought Eurail passes and made some reservations for the TGV trains and sleeper trains that we knew we'd take. The passes save a lot of money, and can be very flexible in terms of when and where you travel, within some constraints.
But somehow we ended-up on a TGV train that had a fault. Our trip from Paris to Frankfurt via Karlsruhe developed a 'technical problem' that made it stop several times on the track. At first I thought it was weather related as it was snowing hard outside, but that wasn't the cause. After a few of these unexpected stops the conductor announced that due to a 'serious technical fault' (said in French - the English and German announcements didn't mention that it was a 'serious' fault, possibly because the conductor was concerned that the English and German speakers might have a heart attack on learning of the seriousness, or leap from the train in case it was to explode) our train was diverting to Reims from where we would return to Paris Gare de l'Est, leave this train, board a replacement TGV and continue our journey towards Germany.
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| Our sick TGV in Reims, sulking before returning to Paris. |
It was on the TGV from Paris that we sat behind 'Sarah and Thomas' from Australia who had lost their luggage somewhere in the bowels of Heathrow and had packed everything in their suitcases including their Nokia phone charger. They were trying to get to Austria for a friend's birthday but the snow really disrupted their flights. So they resorted to taking the train. But I covered that in my post about Lyon. I'm over it now, I no longer need to feel smug for taking the most important things in my carry-on bag. Including my Nokia phone charger...
It took us three hours to reach Reims but only about 35 minutes to return to Paris. For some reason the train worked fine going in reverse but didn't like going forward. And sure enough, we got off our broken TGV, walked across platform 3 and boarded an exact replacement TGV train, sitting in the same seats on the new train that we had on the original. As compensation for the delay we were given bright red lunch boxes filled with, um, interesting long-life products some of which were tasty. We also received a form to complete to claim financial compensation from SCNF for the delay.
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| Mystery food parcel on replacement TGV from Paris. |
Our replacement TGV didn't go to Karlsruhe then Frankfurt. Instead it dropped us off in Strasbourg where we had to run to catch a commuter train to Offenburg, then jump onto the German ICE (InterCity Express) to Frankfurt. We made it, but arrived very late afternoon in Frankfurt missing our city tour that we booked as we would have several hours to kill before boarding our sleeper train from Frankfurt to Vienna to join our first escorted tour, through central Europe for a week with Insight Tours.
More later, on to Vienna!
Labels: Paris TGV Louvre Hotels Lido
posted by Rick's Rambles at 2:03 pm
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