Paris in springtime

Recently I had the good fortune to go to Paris for a few days. Back in January a local airline was having a really good sale on cheap flights and we managed to locate a nice little cheap chain hotel in a decent location online, so we thought, why not? After all, we won't be having a summer holiday for the second year in a row because we're saving for our wedding, so we won't be getting a decent break until our honeymoon at the end of the year. Isn't it great how you can justify such things to yourself? But anyways, the first week of March came around and off we went to the airport.

I love airports! There's just something exciting about them I think. Planes taking off and landing, people going away or coming home, the shops, the cafés... the whole thing! I always fancied working in airport but both the ones near me are awkward and expensive to get to without a car so alas I shall remain a civil servant instead.

As we sat in the coffee shop (having lucked out on nabbing two of the comfy, squishy chairs instead of the hard wooden things) I started reading my latest book purchase, Petite Anglaise, a true story of an English woman who moved to Paris and then blogged about her life there. In the opening pages she talks about why she fell in love with France and describes what she did and saw when she went there.

Suddenly it all came rushing back. You see, I'd been to Paris once before, in December 2007. My mum, sister and I went for a long weekend of sightseeing and shopping and I completely fell head over heels for Paris. It even came in at a close second to my favourite city of all time, Barcelona. But even though we saw most of Paris (well, the bits around the bus tour routes and our hotel on the Rive Gauche anyway), we didn't quite do many of the "French" things I'd learned about in school or read about in books. You know, all the stereotypical things that makes you feel like you're really experiencing Paris - going up the Eiffel Tower, ordering a "café au lait" and a croissant in a little café... I didn't quite want to cycle around in a navy and white striped t-shirt with garlic and onions around my neck and a baguette sticking out of my backpack or anything, but there were certain little things I wanted to do and didn't get a chance to on my first visit. And then of course there were things I did do and then wanted to do again!

So while I was waiting to board the plane I came up with a mental list of 12 things I wanted to do in Paris. Some of them were bonus items that I didn't really expect to be able to do, but they were there in my mind anyway. My list was as follows:

1. Go to the top of the Eiffel Tower, preferably at sunset.


2. Speak French to someone and be understood.


3. Buy a pastry from a Patisserie.


4. Drink wine at a table outside a café/bar/restaurant and watch the world go by.


5. Eat a banana pizza at Del Arte on Boulevard St-Michel.


6. Eat a croque monsieur.


7. Visit the Louvre and see the Mona Lisa.


8. Ogle the goods in the food hall at the Galleries Lafayette.


9. Buy a crepe from a street-side stall.


10. Walk along the Seine.


11. Drink an espresso.


12. See the Moulin Rouge.

Funny how so many of them involved food or drink. Hmmm. But do you know, I managed to do them all!!! I had my doubts about the probability of numbers 2 and 5 and I wasn't sure how readily available number 6 would be outside the pages of a French GCSE textbook, but every one them was fulfilled. I even managed to combine 6 and 7 by having a croque monsieur for breakfast at a café in the Louvre, and also 1 and 11 by warming up with an "expresso" at the café on the first floor of the Eiffel Tower. How perfect a trip! One I did forget that has just occurred to me is to eat smelly French cheese. Oh well, I suppose I'll just have to go back and do that another time... what a pity!

I also had a separate birthday wish, relating to number 1 on the list: I decided that it would be utterly romantic to have a lovely birthday kiss at the top of the Eiffel Tower. Luckily, when my other half had exhausted photo-taking opportunities of "the city of lights" as night fell, he was happy to oblige. Aww, young love, eh? I may read too many chick lit books and watch too many rom coms... oh well!

Let me tell you though, mes amis, on the only full day we were there we decided to walk around all the sights, i.e. no Metro, no buses, no tour buses - just our own four feet. We walked from our hotel near Montmartre to the Madeleine, to the Place de Concorde, along the Seine to the Louvre, around the Louvre itself (which is MASSIVE), up to Notre Dam, over to, and along, the Boulevard St Michel, down loads of other LONG roads, to the Eiffel Tower, up to the Trocadero, down again to the Eiffel Tower, over the river, along the Seine, down another LONG road, up the Champs-Elysses to the Arc de Triomphe, down the Champs-Elysses again all the way to the Place de Concorde, up past Madeleine again and, after a pit stop at the only restaurant that was open and we could afford, back to our hotel. We were KNACKERED. If we hadn't been frequently fuelled by sugary snacks and wine en route, I'm not sure I would have made it. Or there would have been at least a 100% increase in the amount of whining about sore feet, etc.

It was all worth it though. It was a beautiful day and we have some great photos to remember it all by. But now, alas, it's back to porridge as they say. Literally for me - I had a bowl a couple of hours ago for brunch! With limited funds and even more limited leave from work (because of that whole wedding malarky we're doing at the end of the year) there'll be no further exciting jaunts for us for a good while so we have already started to retreat back into our Star Trek DVD box-sets as a means of escape. But when it's cold outside, the dishes need washed and we're facing another week of work, at least we know that we'll always have Paris.