I realise that our last entry (in February) promised a recap of our Paris trip was just about to happen, and that it sort of didn't. But it is here now. We've had a busy couple of months. Most of it has revolved around house hunting and putting an offer in on a house. We haven't bought a house though and I'm sure we'll tell that story at some stage. In the mean time here is the long time missing in action Paris trip and hopefully it won't be too long before we journey abroad again. There is a vicious rumour circulating that summer is on the way, but we are yet to see any evidence of this.
This evening after work we went to Waterloo station and caught the Eurostar to Paris. We had decided when we were in New Zealand that we would like to go back to Paris before the year ran away on us. I know, it's shocking that we were planning our next holiday while still on holiday, but what can I say, it's a tough life.
We thought it would be good to have a long weekend there to do some shopping and to visit the Louvre which we hadn't been able to squeeze in on our previous visit.
The train ride was very smooth and takes you into Gare du Nord right in the centre of the city, and fortunately for us only one stop away on the RER from our hotel. We found our way to the hotel without any problems, in fact I think we did most of it on auto pilot.
I got up and went out to get breakfast (for me anyway) from a local patisserie. This consisted of a wholegrain roll filled with prosciutto, sun blush tomatoes and a few other tasty morsels. I would be lying if I said that this was not followed by a sweet treat, for it was and it was in the form of a raspberry tart. It was delicious. Hayley had rice bubbles or something, I wasn't really paying attention.
After breakfast we set out on a stroll around the neighbourhood to see where the day would take us. Our first port of call was the local agnès b. This is one of my favourite shops and as always they had lovely things there. They also have a women's and an infants store on the same street so we looked at these too. We didn't buy, but we did take mental notes. It started to rain but we were prepared and had both brought our umbrellas, so we enjoyed walking in the light rain through the Marais, stopping to take pictures occasionally and generally enjoying ourselves.
After wandering for an hour or so we came across a delectable little shop called Cacao et Chocolat. oooh yummy. They had a wonderful selection of gourmet chocolates including a bar that was 100% cocoa! We bought a box containing a selection of dark and milk ganache chocolates infused with a variety of flavours and spices. We also bought a bitter chocolate ganache square for eating straight away. Oh boy was it delicious. Realising now, how hungry we had become we set out to find somewhere to eat. We found a little café by Place des Vosges - a picturesque little garden square, currently devoid of leaves - that had menu options appealing to both of us. I had a hot chocolate with my meal as it had got quite chilly outside, but this was no ordinary hot chocolate. It was more akin to pure molten chocolate. It was as though someone had melted a block of fine chocolate into a cup, so thick and syrupy. As you can imagine I was appalled by this level of decadence and commanded them to remove it from my sight. After I had removed the contents of said cup that is.
Our strength renewed after the rest we headed towards Hôum;tel de Ville. There is currently an ice rink set up in from of the town hall, but it was a bit busy for my skating ability. We headed across the road to BHV (Bazaar Hotel de Ville), a department store, and ended up buying a coat for Kate. It's a very cute coat.
We felt quite exhausted so headed back to the hotel for a rest before dinner. We recovered our strength watching the winter Olympics on a real TV.
Seeing as we were in Paris, we decided to go to a Japanese restaurant for dinner. Yes, we're strange alright. Hayley had sushi and I had tempura. It was good, not great, but good.
Our legs were now failing us after all the walking we had done earlier and we fell asleep as soon as we got back to our room.
Most shops are closed in Paris on Sundays so we decided we would devote this day to visiting the Louvre. Being aware that the Louvre is a rather large museum we chose to focus our energies on what we felt were achievable highlights. As our hotel was only a five minute stroll from the Louvre were we able to arrive for opening and avoid the worst of the crowds. Our first priority (after purchasing tickets) was the the Renaissance collection, in particular the works of a certain Signori Da Vinci. We headed straight for the Mona Lisa, and fortunately a number of significant artworks were placed on the path between the entrance and our renaissance goal. The first work we came to was set at the top of a grand marble staircase. The Winged Victory of Samothrace is instantly recognisable. She has unfortunately lost her head, though this does not appear to have diminished her popularity. Having taken the obligatory photographs we proceeded on into the Grand Gallery of the Denon Wing and took in the splendid array of Giotto's, Boticelli's and Titian's. The highlight of this was The Virgin of the Rocks which both of us had studied in high school art history. Having spent some time taking in the magnificence of this and the surrounding works we went into the salle des Etats to meet Lisa Gherardini, wife of Francesco del Giocondo otherwise and more popularly known as the Mona Lisa. Having spent many years being told how tiny the painting is I was rather surprised by how large it was. Ok, it is not a huge room filling fresco but it isn't a postcard either. We were lucky enough to see it relatively crowd free and were able to be in the front row of viewing for quite a few minutes. The guards were even relaxed enough to allow a couple of small boys to go in front of the barrier so that they could get a better look. We looked around the rest of this section before heading out for a morning snack beneath the great pyramid.
We decided that we would like to look at the Egyptian holdings of the museum. This necessitated a detour through the exhibition dealing with the medieval Louvre. This included the remains of the moat of the Louvre of Philippe-Auguste and Charles V used between the 12th and 14th centuries. This was really interesting and echoed what we had seen when we visited the Crypte Archeologique on our previous visit to Paris. The Louvre has a very large collection of Egyptian artifacts ranging from giant stone sarcophagi to miniature fertility goddesses. We were particularly enamoured with the representations of Hathor, Anubis and Apophis. We spent a good amount of time exploring the ancient past before deciding that we had more pressing concerns, namely lunch.
The skies decided to open so we found a nice little french bistro in which to shelter. Fortunately they were able to provide a delicious steak and piping hot frites. Just what we felt like. In deference to the weather and our aching feet we headed back to the hotel for an afternoon rest. Our only other venture out was to locate some dinner, this time Italian, we do like to spread our cuisine choices around when overseas. We had pizza and the slightly less authentic Tuna and made friends with some diners at an adjacent table. They were clearly there for a boy's night out! We headed for an early night but not before Nick topped the day off with an apricot jam crepe.
Shopping, shopping and more shopping. Since this had been the primary reason for this visit we decided to head north today to the big department stores, Printemps and Galeries Lafayette. We walked the thirty minutes from our hotel and enjoyed the Parisian street scene. The department stores are fantastic everything you could ever want under one roof and that roof is quite something to look at. They are both in late nineteenth century buildings with fin-de-siecle stained-glass domes. Not quite like the Warehouse then! We spent a few hours wandering amongst all the rails of fashion, fantastic stationery and high-tech gadgets. We decided on a late lunch and having read in the guide book that Printemps dome was best appreciated from the restaurant underneath we headed there. We had a very long, very leisurely lunch/late afternoon tea/early dinner under the blue/green glass of the dome. The food was good, the company excellent and the surroundings beautiful.
All that remained to be done was to head back to the hotel and pick up the bags before heading to Gare du Nord and the return Eurostar trip. We have decided it is far less hassle and quicker to catch the train than to fly. The train deposits you very centrally at either end and customs and immigration are a breeze. We made it home before eleven having had another wonderful weekend in Paris.
Posted by Nick and Hayley
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