Our flight to Charles De Gaul was at a dreadfully civilised 2:15pm, giving us a leisurely trip to Luton on Friday. It was an uneventful flight, landing us in CDG terminal three. One of the first things I noticed on arrival was the complete lack of interest in attempting to show off, most airports have the shiniest signs in the country, a warm welcome for weary travellers. Instead “Welcome to France, its grey, its concrete, theres queues, the rail ticket machines are incomprehensible even for the locals”. We abandoned our wait in line after waiting five minutes for a couple five or six ahead of us to work out how to insert their credit card – around the corner the queues had subsided a bit and we got a three day pass for the transport system.
The journey to our hotel was easy – the RER trains are quick once you’ve worked out how to get your ticket. And the hotel itself was lovely, tucked away in a little forgotten sideroad in the sleepy suburb of Vincennes, not far from Laurences flat.
Saturday we met with Laurence and went for a walk around Bois de Vincennes, where Dave was picking mistletoe and feeding Carolines dried apricots to the ducks. We found a pavillion style restaurant by the lake for lunch. Inside it was a ballroom, with fabulous food – the dancing didn’t start until later, but we were not really their usual crowd, so we continued our walk.
In the evening we headed into Paris itself, to Boulevaud Haussmann where the department stores were having an English themed christmas….with hanging phone boxes and London buses. From there we walked around the designer district, then along the Avenue de Champs Elysees. There was a telethon going on in one of the large museum buildings, with much shouting and police presence.
Further along we were amazed by the number of people queuing for restaurants – we’d decided to eat in one just off the main drag – and the number of car showrooms. Oddly the Peugeot dealership was far more interesting than the Mercedes one, they had a number of prototype cars there and a far better sense of humour. Cars in general seem to be very French in Paris at least, probably around 80% in the areas we were in, at least they still *have* a car industry.
Sunday we headed out to the north west of the city centre – we started heading toward the Moulin Rouge, where we saw policemen searching a couple, presumably for drugs. The police in France seem to travel in threes, these were on bicycles, which was nice to see. Hidden out the way to the right just a little further up is one of the large cemeteries of Paris.
Buried here are Emile Zola (is that right? He’s famous for making a phrase or something) and Foucault, of pendulum fame, amongst others. I’m not sure I can really do it justice…just go and see it, its great. I got rather snap-happy there, theres plenty of photo chances, I’ll post a few later. The thing that fascinated me was the way that theres a monster road bridge across one corner of the cemetary, built 1888 I think (the cemetary was started mid 1800s), they’ve built the bridge around some of the monuments, so it doesn’t interfere with the crosses and ornamentation on the tops.
Then up the hill toward Sacre Coeur, via a vineyard planted in to commemorate the loss of the wine industry in the area. The view from the top of the hill is awesome – and its nice to have a context for the finale of Rendezvous, not that many of the other streets seemed familiar from the film.
On the way back toward the station we found a little cafe with a great menu for lunch. Then back to Vincenne, where we met up again with Laurence and had a chance to play with little Elise, I’ve not met her before but she seems a lovely baby, not too much crying or noisy. And Philippe and Dave were impressing each other with their games.
Finally it was time to come home. Interminable taxiing on before takeoff but beautiful cloudless night so we could speculate about our current location for much of the return journey.
Lovely to see Caroline, Dave and Laurence again, we should meet up more often.