I love Paris in the Spring Time!

I have been to Paris once before but most of what I think of when I think of Paris is from my rellies who lived here for 4 years.  Whenever we hang out with them they share their love of French culture and cuisine.. wine, coffee, cheese, baguettes and Vichy Pastilles Mints (I ate my last citron one just several weeks ago) - mmmmmm!  We've heard many a story of the wonders of Paris.  It's lovely to be here, on our first night here we wondered through Montmartre, a lovely little place with lots of bakeries and restaurants.  There's also a thriving African community here (very posh).  We had a delicious meal at the lovely local Cafe Francoeur - mine was DELICIOUS salmon!! Whilst we we're waiting for our meals I had to take this shot as I saw the splitting image of Einstein outside.


We then found:


Sacre Couer (The Basilica of the sacred heart of Jesus) 

The famous Moulin Rouge (that we initially planned to view).


We we're pretty stuffed from all the recent travel so we utilized Caroline's lovely room that Snowdon booked us into, to catch up on some much needed rest!  We also  sorted our Eurail pass, and our Monday train trip to Switzerland to stay with Natascha (a past AFS student at Opotiki College!) in Thalwil, near Zurich.  


Early on, after mentioning we were in Paris, we received an email from Rach :


'Have you been singing “I LOVE PARIS IN THE SPRING TIME!” at the tops of your voices at every opportunity??!' 


Well we hadn't!  I hadn't even remembered the song - but it's great - here it is for everyones listening pleasure....


I love Paris as sung by Frank Sinatra, I love Paris as sung by Ella Fitzgerald


What I already had in mind was..


Let Me Sing You a Waltz, Judy Delpy from the movie 'Before Sunset'.


And then every time I see a baguette I think of the song by the Flight of the Conchords:


Foux Da Fa Fa


We've extended our stay in Paris by a few days, mainly because we we're moving a bit slower than usual in getting ourselves organised and couldn't keep up the hectic pace!  We'll still have plenty of time in Switzerland.


As usual we have a pethora of photos to choose from.  We've walked and walked and walked on this trip, which is great as it's our only form of exercise at the moment.  We've walked along the Seine and Avenue des Champs Elysees (I'm quite captivated by the little takeaway espresso they drink here!).  It was freezing our first days here -  Uncharacteristically icily cold!  I was very glad to find H & M and buy some wooly tights.

We've observed a lot of glitz and glamour all around us.

Notre Dame




Had to check out the Louvre (although we didn't go in - I've already identified my favourites previously and Snowdon didn't want to wait in the gigantic line), and of course the legendary Eiffel Tower.  

  

I've noticed the difference from USA to everything being huge to France many things being cute and little!


I'm excited about tomorrow - we're off to Versailles (recommended by Reg and Harold) and then we're booked in to see the caberat Crazy Horse (in place of Moulin Rouge) at 8.15pm!  


Gotta get to bed!