Back to the Dark Side.

Wednesday 18^th September.

Our last full day in Paris, for this leg anyway. But when we come back we will be souvenir shopping like rabid tourists as we have a hefty baggage allowance on the homeward flight and it saves us carrying it all over the north. There’s still a few things on the list that we haven’t done, but I guess that leaves something to do when (not if) we come back in the future. So what’s left goes into a hat, and the winner is …… a walk around the Marais area. Metro to Paris’s biggest non-tourist site, The Bastille. Trevor couldn’t understand why we were going to look at a space where something used to be, but when we got off the Metro at Bastille, there was a display on the wall that explained all about it and I think Trevor ‘got it’. So we went upstairs, looked at the monument in the middle of the Place de Bastille and headed off down Rue St Antoine towards Hotel Sully and the Place des Vosges.

One of the ways in to the Place des Vosges

Place des Vosges

So very pretty, and a quiet place of escape from the busy city. Our route went past the Carnavalet Museum, free entry, and a free loo, so, who can say non?? Feeling obliged to have a look around, we’re impressed with the amount of exhibits over several floors though we don’t spend too much time there although it warrants more time.

Entry to the Museum

The museum’s raison d’etre is French history, mainly the Revolution years, but we were also taken with the pre-history exhibits that plainly showed where the Roman ruins are just down the road from our flat. There’s a bit of everything in here and I would recommend it.

The Roman ruins, the semi-circular bit to the right of the main town.

There’s a bookshop close by very cleverly called ‘Mona Lisait’ (translated as ‘Mona reads’) that sells postcards and as there’s also a post office, I pull my finger out and send my Mum a postcard. Sorry everyone else, you’ll have to wait till I get to Denmark!

Mona reads

We eat our lunch in the courtyard of the Bibliotheque Historique de la Ville de Paris, not as nice as the Place des Vosges, but we weren’t hungry then. We can’t be far from Rue des Rosiers and the Jewish Quarter judging by the amount of people walking around with yummy looking and smelling falafels. Not the same as the ones we get at home, another time when I needed 2 stomachs!

The one that gets mentioned in all the guides.

Then, the heavens opened. Heavy enough to be called rain, it’s away with the camera and out with the umbrellas and eyes open for a café selling beer that we can wait out the rain. Passing the Pomidou Centre as we go, we think what many do, what the hell is going on there?? We’re pretty wet around the lower legs and feet by the time we find a spot and of course, the rain eases up before we’re ready to leave. Our walk is meant to finish at the Hotel de Ville, but as we were there the other day, we decide to head north and suss out the hotel we’re coming back to in a few weeks, and all the associated necessities, nearest Metro, food and drink. Check. It doesn’t look like a flea pit, so we’re happy. Baguettes look to be dearer in this part of town, quel dommage ………………. Like our jaws need more exercise chewing baguettes! Our flat doesn’t have a toaster, the French don’t ‘do’ toast! The roof of my mouth is beginning to get scratched up!

We stumbled across the Marches des Enfants Rouge which I had read was this terrific undercover market, maybe it is in the morning. It closes between 1pm and 4pm. We got there around 4.30 and a few places were open, but it was quiet and a bit of a non-event. I’m glad we hadn’t made a special trip to go there.

Sidenote: I’m writing this after dinner and Trevor is watching the equivalent of Turkish MTV. They’re really getting down! Not!! It’s actually not bad, a bit of a folky sound to it.

Back to the story. Again, feeling a bit defeated by the rain, we drag out the map and locate the Metro to get home, it’s cooling down. We’ve got to move on tomorrow and I thought we had a flight after lunch, but when I checked our papers, it’s 11am and we need to allow enough time to get to the airport, so it’ll be an early start. I’d better get packing, next report from Copenhagen. A bientot!