traveling 17

here we are in Paris

our Paris apartment is fantastic, comfortable, homely, surrounded by bars, cafes, restaurants, a supermarket (for milk and biscuits) is just across the road, walking distance to many places and metro stations nearby if walking isn't an option. 

The Moulin Rouge is also just up the road. We thought it would be fun to go to until we saw the prices and then decided possibly not at €102 each for a show only, the next price was €195 with dinner. 

A bit of a shame,  think it would have been a lot of fun although Barry had reservations

We can see the Eiffle Tower from our bedroom window

also a fabulous view of rooftops and chimney pots

The apartment is 4 floors and there isn't a lift! Actually, it's easily managable not to mention very good exercise. It's away from the street side of the building so it's quiet. We are really enjoying being there although we're not there very much, mostly just to sleep but yesterday was very wet and it was great to have a decent place, with a decent amount of space, to spend time in.

Our first day in Paris was really fine and sunny but the first thing we did was go back to the station and book the train journey back to Spain/ Basque Country on Saturday so we'll arrive back in Azpeitia on Saturday night sometime.

At the station we saw this - phone charging by pedaling.

The next thing we did was to walk to the Opera House and take a tourist bus ride around the city. It was a really great trip but all the time I was thinkingthat Paris is so big, all of the places to visit are so enormous - the Lourve, Notre Dame, Arc de Triomphe etc, and there are masses of people everywhere.- how are we going to see these places in the few days we are here. It just seemed to be an impossible task. 

Here are some photos from the bus

book sellers along the Seine, mile after mile of them

seemed to be a bit of a traffic jam happening

We started out by getting off the bus at the Eiffel Tower and had some fun there - what an amazing structure. I felt a little bit like I did when I stepped into the Collosseum when I looked up and there it was, right there towering up in front of us. OH WOW OH WOW!!! 

We didn't feel inclined to go up the tower at all, there were crowds of people, queues and queues and this sign - 

some kind of repair work is going on and this is one of the lifts for the workers

put together like macarno - who knows about 'macarno'?

  

The day had started lovely and sunny but deteriorated as the day went on until it was grey, cold and rain seemed imminent at the time that we were at the Eifflr Tower so we decided to get back on the bus and continue back to where we'd started from - the Opera House

This is looking down the Avenue de Champs-Élysées. 

The Lourve is at the other end. I didn't take any photos of The Lourve because it's simply too big and no photo would do it justice, that is, none that I would take.

We very much enjoyed our first day in Paris, it felt pretty damned wonderful to be here. It's interesting to see that English isn't so evident here although, some menus have French and English but a lot don't and we've had fun ordering food with out any idea of what we're going to get. We haven't noticed any one being annoyed because we don't speak French.

For dinner the first night we went to a place just down the road from us - what a friggin' disappointment. First of all we ordered 'frog's legs', how could I not try them, well, they'd run out of them! Then I ordered 'osso bucco' and Barry ordered lamb chops in some kind of sauce. After 10 minutes or so the waiter came back and told us that there wasn't any osso bucco. So I ordered something that turned out to be dry old chicken snitzel in breadcrumbs. They didn't charge us for the. wine we had which was decent of them but still it was a disappointing meal. We decideded that we wouldn't be going back there.

And then back to the apartment we went.