Mum's tour of the metro

On instructions from my sister, we were limiting exercise to help with Janice ' s blood nose.  To the metro! 

Restaurant Chartier was out first destination.  After walking up 600 stairs to get out of the metro station (buns of steel, four more steps, buns of steel), we arrived at the 100+ year old restaurant that was originally set up to serve the working classes and has had only four owners in its lifetime.  The decor and waiters' uniforms was actually quite posh and I felt a little under dressed in shorts and a t-shirt.  The meal itself was nothing to write home about (salad followed by chicken and chips for mum and Janice, and veal in white sauce for me), but the atmosphere was very pleasant.

Next, the Sacre Coeur to see the sunset.  We pulled out mum's map and as I'm the only one with decent eyesight I determined the best metro route.  To limit the number of changes, mum told us we were walking a few stops.  Unfortunately, that metro line was closed so we had to recalculate.    Several changes later, we were finally in the right region.  Upon eyeballing the steps up to the Sacre Coeur, we decided we would take the funicular.  Just because of Janice's nose of course. 

The church itself was very nice, but we were too late for sunset and too late for the dome.  We sat for a bit listening to an accordion playing busker, and then moved to the front steps where the police and the hawkers put on a nice show of cat and mouse.  There was also fire dancers, a nice looking moon, and lovely views of the city all lit up.

We were too tired so skipped our planned visit to the Eiffel Tower and hopped on the metro home.

My feet hurt

The day started slowly, but mum and I were walking down the Champs-Elysées by 10 am ( Janice stayed at home as she had a blood nose).  There weren't many people about so it was a very pleasant walk despite the heat.  It's been about 30 degrees the whole time we've been here.  Even at night.

  Monet's water lilies at Musee de l'orangerie lived up to the hype.  The Renoirs were the other highlight.  One painting (Yvonne and Christine at the piano was very clever with a couple of Degas paintings on the wall behind them.  Renoir dies a fair Degas forgery....  The also rans were paintings by Picasso, Matisse, Durain, and a very nice Monet Argenteuil.

We wandered back along the Seine and, stumbled across a nice white ferrari outside a very nice hotel, followed by a visit to the American Cathedral of the Holy Trinity. I couldn't figure out why they were having a party in the courtyard.  Then I realized it was Sunday.  The Cathedral was nothing special but it was very cool inside.

Our apartment is in the middle of a street market so we shopped for lunch: pull apart bread made from croissant mixture, brie, strawberries and a nice red wine ( Clara Minervois).  It was pretty damn good.

After a siesta, all three of us went to the Arc Triomphe, climbed a gazillion stairs for views across the city, and a nice little exhibition of photos of uniforms of WW1 soldiers including one from Otago.  The photographer is known for his portraits so these photos without faces were very symbolic of the unknown soldier. 

There's more to tell about the day, but I'm sleepy so it will have to wait for tomorrow.

Chasing daylight

As I sat on plane above the Tasman watching the long sunset as we sat on that line on the map between night and day, I wrote my first blog in my head.  It was poetic, it was witty, it was possibly even profound.  But after two days with no sleep, I'm rather jetlagged and all there is in my brain is emptiness. 

We have however arrived in Paris, navigated the trains and roads to our lovely apartment and had eight hours sleep.  Some highlights from the flight:

1.  Janice bought a set of eye cover thingys.  They had me in hysterics (you'll have to ask her why)
2.  At Dubai airport: Me: shall we travelator?  Janice: no, let's travel now.   (As our flight had been delayed, this was particularly amusing)
3. The poor man's first class visit the the spa in Dubai airport.

Today we're off the see the Arc de Triomphe and then wander from there....