Aaahhhhh! Paris.......... It is a place of constant delight or it is just another crowded city. The answer depends which one of us you ask I suppose. Both of us are mad keen to return though. The food is wonderful, (we speak as people who have been living on English fare for a year).....The locals are friendly despite rumours to the contrary.... The buildings, museums, galleries, shops, parks, cafe's, restaurants, streets, trains and traffic,,,,all spectaular. Our complete lack of French was no hinderence and we negotiated every event without hassel. Accommodation not so elegant but the experience in totality is devine. Our journey started in a Yorkshire snow drift as we headed off to the airport, fears of grounded planes and delayed 
arrival were a niggling discomfort as we settled down for the night in a hotel nearby the airport where we were parking our car for the week. We awoke to hear quiet skies and views of snow on the ground. (the photo -> was taken later when most of the fall was melted). We were not concerned too much as our flight was in the afternoon and as it turned out all was well with Air France having not been affected although many flights had been turned away in the morning due to snow.The flight was uneventful and very quick, only about an hour or so.... we really have no excuse not to get over to Europe more often,,,, our arrival in Charles deGaul airport was smooth, bags collected after a short train trip to the baggage carousels and then a minicab (40euro) trip to out hotel in the Latin quarter of Paris. (For those of you who know about these things, on the corner of Bvde. Saint Germain and Saint Michelle, in the 5th Ar.) 
It was called Hotel Cluny Square and was above some shops, up a flight of stairs with reception on the first floor and a lift serving the 5 upper floors. We were granted the internet-booked-discount-special room. A bit too small for our liking, Greg could not stand up in it, nor get to his side of the bed without walking over the bed itself....the photo here makes it look huge. We did ask for a change on the Easter Monday and were given a comparatively palatial replacement for the remaining 6 days. In the picture above, our first room was one of those windows in the roof, the upgrade room was on the fifth level, our room was the three windows to the left, nice outlook over the old medicinal gardens across the road. 
The Hotel location was grand, only a short stroll to the Seine and surrounded by cafe's and restaurants and fashion shops, and other shops, and more shops, and even more shops.... the photo shows the view from our window and the sharp eyed Francophiles amongst you will pick the towers of Notre Dame just sticking up above the roof lines. 
That night we asked the bloke on the reception desk at the hotel, in our best Australian, if he could recommend a good place to eat nearby. He directed us to a place which was far too busy but managed to seat us in a little table almost in the warmth where we enjoyed a delightful meal and wines to return home to bed, full and content. After a sleep in and a breakfast of baguettes, coffee, croissants, cheese, yogurt and a little chocolate laid on by our quaint hotel in the even quainter lobby, we set off to stroll to the Notre Dame thing as we knew our friends Mathew and Loretta who were arriving that night probably wouldn't want to go there again. The day was a charm. We decided against the queue and walked the street stalls which were selling old photos, art, tack, junk and tourist rubbish and we spent some hours wandering the streets behind the church where there are lots of garden / nursery shops selling a wide range of everything garden and green.
The public drinking water fountain was a bit OTT we thought.
arrival were a niggling discomfort as we settled down for the night in a hotel nearby the airport where we were parking our car for the week. We awoke to hear quiet skies and views of snow on the ground. (the photo -> was taken later when most of the fall was melted). We were not concerned too much as our flight was in the afternoon and as it turned out all was well with Air France having not been affected although many flights had been turned away in the morning due to snow.The flight was uneventful and very quick, only about an hour or so.... we really have no excuse not to get over to Europe more often,,,, our arrival in Charles deGaul airport was smooth, bags collected after a short train trip to the baggage carousels and then a minicab (40euro) trip to out hotel in the Latin quarter of Paris. (For those of you who know about these things, on the corner of Bvde. Saint Germain and Saint Michelle, in the 5th Ar.) 
It was called Hotel Cluny Square and was above some shops, up a flight of stairs with reception on the first floor and a lift serving the 5 upper floors. We were granted the internet-booked-discount-special room. A bit too small for our liking, Greg could not stand up in it, nor get to his side of the bed without walking over the bed itself....the photo here makes it look huge. We did ask for a change on the Easter Monday and were given a comparatively palatial replacement for the remaining 6 days. In the picture above, our first room was one of those windows in the roof, the upgrade room was on the fifth level, our room was the three windows to the left, nice outlook over the old medicinal gardens across the road. 
The Hotel location was grand, only a short stroll to the Seine and surrounded by cafe's and restaurants and fashion shops, and other shops, and more shops, and even more shops.... the photo shows the view from our window and the sharp eyed Francophiles amongst you will pick the towers of Notre Dame just sticking up above the roof lines. 
That night we asked the bloke on the reception desk at the hotel, in our best Australian, if he could recommend a good place to eat nearby. He directed us to a place which was far too busy but managed to seat us in a little table almost in the warmth where we enjoyed a delightful meal and wines to return home to bed, full and content. After a sleep in and a breakfast of baguettes, coffee, croissants, cheese, yogurt and a little chocolate laid on by our quaint hotel in the even quainter lobby, we set off to stroll to the Notre Dame thing as we knew our friends Mathew and Loretta who were arriving that night probably wouldn't want to go there again. The day was a charm. We decided against the queue and walked the street stalls which were selling old photos, art, tack, junk and tourist rubbish and we spent some hours wandering the streets behind the church where there are lots of garden / nursery shops selling a wide range of everything garden and green.
The public drinking water fountain was a bit OTT we thought.
The glacial tempest that buffets the Eiffel queues on the ground, the artic gusts on its first level where you change lifts to get to the top and of course the pinicle of all achingly freezing blizzards at the top. It would be nice in summer but the queues are even longer (it took us an hour and a half of waiting to get to the top.... worth it though.... I could then go on to detail our experience in the erotic musee near the Moulon Rouge
where us blokes were dragged in by the girls keen on some Paris titilation.... It was more of an exhaustive exhibit of sculptural and pictorial porn to be fair, but a good counterpoint for the senses, following as it did our journey to the nearby catholic Sacre Cur church thing from whence the views over Paris are amazing.
... sorry no photos of the musee erotica, you'll have to go to Paris yourself see that. The view from Sacre Cur is background to the shot of Gail me and Pricille and the red 2CV a bit further down. We could regale you with stories of that 2CV day tour 
of the "old Paris" where our drivers got lost and we fell about laughing quite a lot...........But rather than do any of that I'll just load up some photos in random order and you can get a feel of the time we had. 
This shot is an indication of the weather we enjoyed. Gail is wrapped against the cold and wind, standing before the fountain of Saint Michelle square which is one of those surprising things you find at the end of your street. It is surrounded by cafe's and restaurants and book shops, and book shops, , , there are a lot of book shops in Paris. Some of the interesting things we discovered about Paris was the rental pushbike system, something which Gail showed no interest in, but I figured the bikes plug into meters which also charge up the lights and record the bike's location.
I guessed you swipe a card, select a suitable bike (some have been hit by cars and have buckled wheels...) hop on and pedal to another part of town where you plug it back into another rack and get charged for time and distance, a pittance as far as I could figure it but the darn sign was all in Frenche...go figure). The Rodin Musee 
was a delight I learned about the process of making a bronze sculpture, learned Rodin rarely carved any of the works and that his interpretation of the masters is truly inspired.... nice house too. We went to The Cafe Deux Magots
which is not as the moniker might indicate but a great place to visit and eat, the name being more feminine in French than an unsophisticated Australian may immediately think. Famous people I have never heard of have used it as their Paris haunt, as have some folk like Picasso and Hemingway who I have heard of , but neither of whom were there when we went..... we were probably too late. The waiters were fantastic, all slick hair, bow ties and long white aprons. It was a bit of theatre, we went there in the middle of our 2CV tour. At different times on our walks around the city we often settled for a coffee, the picture here shows us in the gardens next to the Louvre
where there are sculptures, fountains, police on horseback, outrageous prices for coffee and creme broulee and long chats with good friends.... Gail and I also came across an American jazz band busking on a closed bridge which would have been good to listen to for longer but every passing copper stopped them playing to check their permit.... sort of spoilt the rhythm. One day we taught ourselves how to use the rail system , by trial and error. There was a RER and metro stop at the door of the Hotel. It was said we could have walked to our destination that day given the number of wrong directions I took to get to the right platform.... By the end of it we are old hands and managed to get out of the city centre to the markets which go on for miles and miles of streets and city blocks. 
The vendors sell everything from fashion, new and knockoffs, to antiques, electrical, junk, coffee, art, hardware, I could go on... we did..... The four of us spent a huge morning there, again a great experience.....
The 2CV tour also took us to some other church thing (Saint Sulpice) that was a scene in the da Vinci Code fiction and I vaguely recall it mentioned among the blood and fire...... or was that in Angels and 
Demons..... 
Dan Brown stories are all the same,,,, Anyway the place was interesting in it's own right as they are doing restoration works and you can see the masons at work and the challenges they face, all in French... still I got the gist of it. Actually we found French no problem at all and we managed to spend the whole week not learning one phrase as every attempt to use some bastardised half remembered sentence in French was immediately replied to in flawless english.... We were tarred with the presumption of being British though, and folk warmed up a lot when told we were aussies. I may have mentioned we did a lot of dining out 
and other than one rather disappointing meal of mussels (we decided the touristy places near our hotel were best avoided after that one) we did otherwise enjoy the meals and places and wines we were presented with and generally had a delightful week.
We will be heading back to Paris to see the galleries and musees we missed this time. We consider the week with Matt and Ret to be a familiarisation trip and mainly a long overdue catch up with mates..Sorry this update has taken a while....we returned home at the end of March to find our builder had done nothing in our absence and was in financial trouble.... I have been trying to dig the project out of that glitch and to be fair the builder is trying to provide us with the labour and trades to fix the problem.... We have no doubt we will finish the job , it's just not as soon as we would like.... At least we know the next one we tackle will be easier than this one..... couldn't be any worse, and we have learned lessons about the UK system as well as now having a fine gathering of good tradies we can call on. The next blog will be of the finished rooms as all the visible work is now complete and just some plumbing and electrical and tidy up is needed.
Let us know if you want more photos or any other detail about Paris....We are experts now.
All our love.
Greg and Gail.
