Paris

Well, we just got back from Paris. This was our third visit, and I think I enjoy it more each time. It really is an amazing city, filled with great things to do and see. The best thing about Paris is all of the art. Everywhere you turn there is an amazing museum, or a musician, or a painter, not to mention all of the writers. Something about the city seems to inspire art; the city itself is a work of art. I would even venture to say that there is no city that is a beautiful as Paris, especially when you consider the scale of it.

Note: I go into an in-depth account of our trip now. If you don't care to read it, you can see the pictures here.

This was a fairly typical Elliot trip, which involves cheap accomodation, lots of walking, and most importantly, lots of eating. We booked our hotel in advance, the same one that we stayed in the last two times that we visited. It is a nice little hotel on one of the main streets in the center of the city. We splurged this time and got a room with a shower in it, but we still had to share the toilet with the rest of the floor (about three other rooms). The best thing about this hotel is it's location. It is close to the metro and about a five minutes walk from Notre Dame.

We arrived in Paris late on Thursday night, checked into our hotel, and went to bed. Friday morning we were up around 9AM for coffee, croissants, and pain au chocolat. We then wandered past Notre Dame to Heather's favorite bookshop in Paris, Shakespeare and Company. It is an English language bookshop which "sponsors" writers by giving the free accomodation for helping out with the bookshop. She bought another copy Hemingway's "A Moveable Feast", a memoir about living in Paris (one of her favorites). Lunch was takeaway from a little fallafel place (really good, quick and cheap). Then we went to the Centre George Pompidou to see an exhibit of modern African art. I really liked some of the peices of art that used scraps of junk; it really reminded me of time that I have spent in third world countries. You always see people doing the best with what they can find. It is always cool seeing the toys that kids have made from old tin cans and bits of wire, they are often running around having a great time with their creations. After the museum, we took a long walk down to the Place du Concorde, and of course by this time, we were ready for food again. We had a great meal at a Greek / Italian restaurant. It included a tomato salad, pizza, and a grilled chicken sandwich. Next we made a big loop all the way up the Champs d'Elysee, then down to the river Seine (just in time for the sun set), and back to our hotel. Heather felt sick that night, and we went to bed early (exhausted).


Saturday morning was beautiful and Heather's upset stomach was better. We took a long metro ride to an antiqes flea market. We grabbed crepes for breakfast on the way. There was all kinds of cool stuff (most of it quite expensive). Amazingly, Heather managed not to buy anything. Part of the reason that no purchases took place was because it started pouring with rain before we were finished. We were prepared (we had umbrellas), but things shut down pretty quickly. We made our way to a local cafe where we had coffee and waited for the rain to stop. Then we hopped on the metro again and went to the Pere Lachaise cemetary. Before actually entering the cemetary, we had panninis from a little sandwich shop for lunch. This cemetary could be one of the most beautiful places in Paris. It is lined with beautiful old trees and filled with magnificent tomb stones and monuments. Many famous people are buried here: Gertrude Stein, Oscar Wilde, and of course Jim Morrison. Here is Heather visiting Gertrude Stein's grave:

From there we took the metro to Montmarte, the neighborhood famous for all of the artists that live there. It has become very touristy these days, and not quite as bohemian as it used to be. It is still a great place to go if for no other reason but to see the Sacre Coeur and the great views of the city. It is also home to one of our favorite restaurants in Paris (more on that in a minute). We purchased a pack of Gauloise cigarettes that we attempted to smoke on the steps of the Sacre Coeur. We were pathetic of course and couldn't really inhale, and we made asses of ourselves, but it was fun. According to Heather, Gauloise cigarettes are quite famous, and all the writers used to smoke them.

Now on to dinner. We ate at Refuge du Fondue, which is a very unique place. There are only two long tables in the small restaurant. The person who sits on the wall side of the table has to climb over the table to sit on the bench. You have two choices on the menu, meat or cheese, and since Heather is vegetarian, we got the cheese option. The meal comes with a small glass of sweet wine and a large baby bottle filled with either white or red wine. You suckle the wine right out of the nipple on the baby bottle, very weird, but quite fun. Completely bloated with cheese fondue, we drug ourselves back to our hotel.

Sunday morning brought more coffee and croissants. We could hear the church bells of Notre Dame ringing on our walk to breakfast (I imagined a little Quasimodo ringing them). We started off the day by wandering down the Rue Moufftarde. This road has lots of bookshops and cafes on it and it is near Hemingway's first apartment in Paris. At the bottom of the road there was a little festival where people were dancing to music played by old guys with accordians. They were dancing right by a beautiful old fountain and it was all very festive. We had sandwiches for lunch. In the afternoon we walked through Montparnasse to the Jardin du Luxembourg.

Parisians have been spending Sunday afternoons in this beautiful park for years. It was kind of weird to see people doing yoga there. From the park we went to the Eiffel Tower where we did the touristy thing and set up our tripod so that we could have our picture taken with it. Heather thinks the picture from the digital camera is so bad that she won't let me post it, perhaps the regular camera turned out better. We had dinner near our hotel in the Marais district. Being a Jewish district it is a great place to get fallafels and other middle eastern food. We went to our favorite place there, Las du Fallafel. Apparently, Lenny Kravitz eats there when he is in Paris. As usual, the food was amazing and we ate way too much. Following dinner, we capped off our trip with a boat ride down the river (amazingly, neither of us lost our fallafels). The boat goes past many major Paris sites which are all lit up at night. We were lucky enough to be going past the Eiffel Tower right at ten o'clock when it sparkles with a light show. I went to take a picture of it (which I'm sure will not come out), and when I got back to our seats on the boat, Heather was crying because she thought it was so beautiful.

Monday morning started at 5:30Am (4:30 UK time). We took the train back to the airport, and our plane arrived in England around 9AM. After the two hour car ride, we were back at our home for lunch (funny, I can't remember what I ate). I went back to work for the afternoon, but didn't accomplish much. That's about it. We didn't get to watch any jazz because we were always too tired to go out at night, and we didn't get to see the Musee de l'Orangerie because it is still being renovated. Guess we will have to go back.