Europe 2014: Paris 5 nights before train to Turin (Italy)

Friday 6th June 2014

Caught the metro to our 3br Paris flat where we have an AirBnB booking for 5 nights sharing with Sandy's sisters and brother in-law, Julie and Lynne & Craig who arrived at 4pm. It is a magnificent apartment on the top floor in a great area and another AirBnB success story.

Craig arrived with food poisoning and was very sick. The three sisters and AR went for a walk to the Place Desvosges where King Henry IV built a square and accommodations to try and attract Italian silk makers in 1604 then went to our local tapas bar and had a great night.

Saturday 7th June 2014

Restful day in our spacious flat doing the washing and diary from our Somme Battlefields tour. Julie, Lynne & Craig had a busy day including the bus they were travelling on colliding with a Ferrari. We all headed out to dinner to the oldest market in Paris, Marque des Enfants Rouges ('market of the red children' so named from the old orphanage there).

Paris 3br top floor flat

After dinner AR & SR decided on a night out and headed to Le Caveau de Huchette Jazz club in the Latin Quarter. The medieval building housing the jazz club has quite a history, set in a basement over 10 metres underground and once used for regular meetings by the Templars and Rosicrucians. It was like stepping back in time not just because of the building but also the music and dancers, mostly swing and the dance floor was always busy with non-dancers sitting on the red leather couches that lined the stone room walls. It was a fun night and when leaving after 1am the streets seemed so safe and busy we decided to walk the 2+km home and glad we did. Paris was buzzing and safe.

Sunday 8th June 2014

Spent the afternoon at Musee de Louvre which cost 12 Euro and has to be the cheapest ticket around. Wow what an amazing place. Over 300,000 exhibits and after 4 hours moving fairly quickly we were lucky to have seen half of it. The Mona Lisa area was quite busy but the other areas, especially away from the Italian painters, the crowds were only moderate. Still it felt quite hot and stuffy at times and we could easily imagine the crowds and heat being overwhelming in peak season.

Hard at work been having a winning run on the horses

We met the others in a cathedral for an organ recital on France's largest pipe organ and then walked to the Italian Quarter again where the others had booked a Vivaldi concert. Decided we had better have an escargot entree and they weren't half bad, in fact eating them didn't feel much different to some of the other little in-shell seafood molluscs that are popular here and similar to pippis or tiny mussels eaten back home.

Monday 9th June 2014

The public holiday meant the streets were quiet and we went for a good walk and a visit to Notre Dame cathedral and stayed for a little of 6pm service which was difficult to follow in French but the singing and organ were great, although marred by disrespectful tourists being noisy and taking flash photos.

Met some friends Pete and Peta so there were 7 of us for dinner, walked home again afterward and again it seemed super safe and managed to be home just in time before the thunderstorm broke.

Been reading up on the Eiffel Tower which was originally built in 1889 for a world expo and designed to be taken down after 20 years. There was a wave of unsuccessful protests about its construction, particularly from artists in Paris, and funnily enough one artist who could not tolerate the sight of it apparently ate lunch there every day for years as it was the only place in town where he could not see this monstrosity. It was the tallest building in the world until 1930 and needs 50-60 tonnes of paint every 7 years to stop the rust. There is 7300 tonnes of steel in it but amazingly it is very efficient design and if melted down would only cover the 125 sqm base with 2.5 inches of steel.

Tuesday 10th June 2014

A special treat today for our small family group with a 3 course lunch at the Jules Verne restaurant in the Eiffel Tower. Bookings open 3 months in advance with the fastest to book gaining the window tables and Julie had counted down the days until the booking could be made to make sure we would get a good table. Together we took the slow option of the bus from our flat to the Tower, a 45 min ride that passed many of Paris's great sights. At 100 Euro a head plus drinks you hope for a special experience and it certainly was. A private elevator whisked us 140 metres up to the 2nd platform and into the restaurant. The waiting staff somehow managed to perfectly balance being terribly posh with very welcoming and helpful. The weather was wet but the view still magnificent and we enjoyed a lunch experience we will never forget along with a view straight up the Champ de Mars.

Paris flat

Umbrellas overhead, we had a walk around the viewing platform after lunch and then headed on the metro for Lafayette shopping centre which was pretty amazing with its stain-glass dome-top roof and designer wear from absolutely every top fashion label.

Julie opened a special bottle of French champagne she purchased for our little group to celebrate our last night in Paris but then Craig received a belated message from his host for the next day warning that the French train staff were going on strike at 7pm for one or more days until they get what they want and suddenly we didn't know what our plans may be.

Research revealed about half the trains from Paris wouldn't be running, including the two lines to the airports and to stick the boot in the taxis were going to strike as well (unhappy with new private systems like Uber taking off). We looked up the news and found horrible photos of masses of people inconvenienced from previous rail strikes and found that the French Parliament is debating a bill this week to try and save the state rail and solve the major debt problems.

Flash bike

Upon checking, each of our three trains, all to different places, were cancelled due to the strike but after much internet ado we all managed to rebook on different trains that were running. Found an old printer in the cupboard that was out of ink and after a couple of dodgy pages managed to print out tickets with scannable barcodes.

It was 2am before we were organised enough to go to bed and set the alarms for 6am to get our new early trains but still felt we were the lucky ones as had it not been for Lynne and Craig's next host advising us we would have all just been turning up for our cancelled trains in the morning.

Wednesday 11th June 2014

Beat the alarm to be up before 6am, bus to the train and we boarded for our long trip on the 7:49am train to Turin.