Paris Day 1

Wednesday 5th October, 2011

Ok so sometimes I’m not very bright, I went downstairs early this morning to get a feel for the weather and although it wasn’t quite light yet I thought our luck had run out and it had been raining all night and the sky did look a bit gloomy. Well when I said something to the receptionist here he said ‘no no madam, they have cleaned the streets’. Well I felt like a right wally, even though we were aware that they do that cause the streets are untidy when you go to bed and they’re nice and clean when you get up but I don’t think I’d noticed the water before!! Anyway as it turned out it was a bit overcast but I was assured by the receptionist that it wasn’t going to rain.

We went downstairs to the bar next door for a coffee, which is apparently associated with the hotel before we headed off this morning. Apparently being associated with hotel doesn’t make it cheaper because it was probably the most expensive cuppa we’ve had so far. Something I haven’t mentioned is that a lot of the hotels say they have tea/coffee making facilities but don’t have anything in the rooms and you have to ask but when you do they never have a ‘boiler’ available. This one had the boiler available as we requested but no fridge to put our bloody milk in. They’d freak with all the facilities they’d get at the hotels in Australia. They did say that they have a fridge on the 7^th floor and that they would get our milk whenever we needed it so that is what we’ve decided to do cause we like a cuppa at the end of the day and also first thing in the morning.

Blah, blah, blah, sorry I went on a bit but I couldn’t help but let you know exactly what we are doing. We got going after our coffee and headed by foot to the Eiffel Tower first. Luckily we checked the times on the internet cause the receptionist here said it opened at 10:00am but it actually opened at 9:30am. By the time we’d walked there it was about 9:00am so we jumped into the relatively small queue and waited. Boy was the queue long when we came out, thankfully we’re early starters. We went up to the top and even though it was a cool cloudy morning everything was visible. I must say having been there before my visit this time was much more enjoyable and it was on the top of Kim’s list of things to do as she said that this is one of the places that she has always dreamed of seeing and even though she was very apprehensive in the see-through lift travelling to the top, she was thrilled to have this dream become a reality. We spent as much time as we needed there and then came down and walked down Champ de Mars to take some more photo’s. We asked a couple standing there if they would take a photo of the two of us together and we then did the same for them. The man then started chatting with us about our holiday and was really interested which was nice, they were from Holland.

Kim & Jane at Eiffel Tower

We then went on our way back towards the Eiffel Tower and over to the Palais de Chaillot where we took some more photo’s of the Eiffel Tower and surrounding area. From there we walked to the Arc de Triomphe. We went under the road cause god knows you couldn’t get to it any other way, the traffic there is crazy, crazy. We purposely didn’t take the steps at the Eiffel Tower cause we figured we’d get enough exercise and boy were we right. Up the steps we went to the top of the Arc de Triomphe. More photo opportunities and another overview of the surrounding areas. I did say to Kim how amazing it is that the Eiffel Tower seems to stand out from everywhere but when you are on the ground because of the buildings and the way the roads curve, etc. it is very hard to find it. On our way to it I think we got one glimpse of it and then it was just trying to go in the general vicinity of where we thought it was. In fact we did stop on our way to ask a very good looking young policeman where the Eiffel Tower was and he smiled and walked about 5 steps back to the nearest street and pointed, and voila there she was. I just had the impression you would be able to see it from anywhere, even on the ground.

Kim & Jane on top of Arc de Triomphe
(Eiffel Tower in background which we walked from)

We left the Arc and headed down Avenue des Champs Elysees. I wanted to pop across the road to Louis Vuitton but Kim wouldn’t let me, ha ha! We grabbed a baguette for lunch and halved it because they are always so long. We had to do that ourselves though with their plastic knife because the guy serving us said he wasn’t allowed. They eat a lot of bread over here, not sure how they stay thin. As we were walking down the street we spotted a Sephora shop which is apparently cheap for perfume so we started veering towards it. We noticed all these women standing around just near there and photographers and cameramen and wandered over. They all seem to be dressed similar and were holding little signs saying ‘be the woman you want to be’. We had no idea what was going on but they seem to be waiting for someone so we decided to head into the store. Well as we got closer we realised they had put the red carpet out for us and there were about 8 security men lined on either side of the entrance. We wandered down anyway and thought it was good of them to put the red carpet out for a couple of ordinary Aussie girls. Next thing we know as we’re checking out all the perfumes, the music starts playing and there is all this commotion. It was, and I don’t know if any of you have heard of her, but Diane von Furstenberg who was promoting her first fragrance. Apparently she is a designer but although I knew I’d heard her name I thought it was for something else. Anyway that was a bit of excitement for us. We eventually left there and headed further down when I spotted a WC sign so we went in search of that. We finally found it and had to pay which we thought we would (2 euro), but it was touted on entering as the ‘cleanest toilet in town’. It was certainly that, we had to wait at the desk like you would at the front of a restaurant waiting to be seated and then a girl came along and showed you to your toilet. I had no sooner come out and started to wash my hands when she whipped in there and sprayed something (not that she needed to!!) and I assume wiped everything over. We wouldn’t normally pay for the privilege of going to the loo but it was definitely an experience.

We kept going down the Champs Elysees passing the Place de la Concorde until we finally made it to Notre Dame. As is the case most of the churches/cathedrals, etc. are very grand and built on such a huge scale. Amazingly you don’t have to pay to enter which apparently should be the case for all churches but they usually get you in another way. We decided to climb the stairs to the towers and go up the top to have a look and this is where they sting you. We were happy to do this though and proceeded to stand in a relatively small queue. I think we waited longer here than we did in the queue at the Eiffel Tower. Eventually we made it to the top and once again the views were magnificent and as previously mentioned the Eiffel Tower was very visible again. We spent the allotted amount of time there and decided that was enough for one day.

We started to walk back to our hotel, which when making our way to Notre Dame we saw our street so we knew exactly how far we needed to go which I think was pure fluke. On the way back we stopped into a little Irish bar for a drink as we were both very parched. On we went again and as we were a little hungry again and we figured most places here let you eat when you want, we made our way to a restaurant that we’d previously noted not far from our hotel for a bite to eat. We both had a chicken salad and a drink, by this time it was about 5:15. The waiter was really nice and helped us with a bit of the local language. We sat outside and watched the people going about their business, smiling at some, getting smiles back, even a kiss blown our way. I don’t think they’re used to people just smiling at them over here, they’re quite a grumpy looking race most of the time but ok when you get to chat to them. We had also noticed a little patisserie around the corner so we decided to get another treat for our coffee tonight. Kim had a strawberry tart and I had a muille feuille (not sure we were set.

We are not sure how many kilometres and steps we’ve done today but our legs and feet are definitely feeling it, we will probably catch the Metro tomorrow!

Au revoir from gay paree.