Adventure on a budget

So, the blog exists, and will be added to randomly according to the dictates of both mood and internet access.

If this works, people on facebook will notice a post and be happy I am alive...

Cheers!

First day in Paris, and the sky is blue. We needed to keep awake, so we vaguely headed in the direction of the Eiffel Tower.
Bob said jokingly that it didn't matter if it took us 7 hour -we had all day. We did, but our feet gave out before we got there. We did a lot of 'look-over-there' meanders, so not really a surprise.
On the way, we saw this playground in La Place Des Voges - actually this was a pre-wander, while we waited for the previous tenants to leave, and for our apartment to be cleaned and tidied for us. We had 45 minutes, after all...
[IMG]http://img811.imageshack.us/img811/3372/firstdayinparis004.th.jpg[/IMG]

At our furthest for the long (5 hour) walk, I was attracted to the 'look, ........ bright, ...... shiny' on a big pole!
[IMG]http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/369/firstdayinparis016.th.jpg[/IMG]

As we staggered home, I found this to marvel at
[IMG]http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/5659/firstdayinparis022.th.jpg[/IMG]

So first day in, and it seems that paris will indeed have wonders and wows to last a while!

Day 2 is bright and sunny. We decided that we still couldn't be bothered with much of a plan, so Bob found a walking tour or the Marais area, (our local) that should take 5 hours or so. Stop 17 was our street, and the tour id a circle, so we started from right outside our door. we admired the Jewishness of it all, the stars of David, the candelabra, falafel shops and kosher butchers.

It was a very nice tour for the first 4 hours. by that time we had spent a very long time in the Museum of the History of Paris. It was worth the time, but we started sitting on many available seats, to admire paintings and decor for longer...

Then the tour started to go downhill. Its a 2010 vintage, so we expected a few changes, but the next two grand houses with an open courtyard and gardens and foyers to admire were firmly closed to the public. The Picasso museum is shut for renovations until next year. The fabulous shop/ art galley for international artists was a bookshop.... The fabulous designer fabric and home furnishing store was tiny and had about 3 bolts of fabric...

All of which we were sneakily glad of, so we could validly finish the tour, and go home to put our feet up! It was 3 pm, and we had passed by dozens of lunch opportunities in the first hour, and barely any in the last four. Just up our street, from the beginning of the tour, we collected a cup of fabulous soup, and staggered off to our den.

We ventured out for dinner at 6pm, knowing it was incredibly early for dinner, but thinking we could get into a nice restaurant without booking, and have an early meal. we'd planned and researched three options, all quite close and under 20 Euro's for a set 2 course menu. So, two were shut, and the last looked intimidatingly posh, and the menu outside seemed very expensive. So we slunk off to hunt for a perfect random place.

At this point, i wanted some dinner,and Bob was being fussy, finding it hard to read and translate the chalk menu boards, to know precisely what we might be eating. So i became impatient, and at the second place with a set menu for 14 Euros, i sat us down so we could at least eat something!

The food was fabulous! I want random again tomorrow! Gaspacho soup followed by confit duck for Bob, and Stir=-fried chicken and vegetables followed by a pancake filled with stewed apple for me.

Ok, so what is Paris like?
Dry and dusty - lots of parks gardens and courtyards with green areas, but the walking/driving bits that are not paved are a fine white dust. In the larger areas, you need sunglasses for the dazzle off the white dirt.

Footpaths wide enough for one person, and that becomes a single file going each way, with everyone spilling out into the one-way streets to have room to walk. Cars are patient. They legally need to miss pedestrians by one metre.

Tiny tiny shops. Three to six metres wide, length hugely variable. You can be regularly taken by surprise as you glance in a tiny doorway, expecting small, and every now again, the shop will be 20 metres long (not sure exactly but long!)

Walking along the street, the building line is straight up for 6 to 8 stories. Shops on the ground floor, apartments above. Non- shop doors are massive heavy double doors, usually with key-code entry, and if you see inside, suddenly there is a courtyard, a garden, a square with a six story apartment mansion on every side. In the history museum, there were models, and this part of Paris was filled by mansions. So a block is four 4-sided mansions, each with their own courtyard in the middle, and the outside walls of one hollow square house almost touched the outside walls of the next hollow square house. except that none of them were in any way perfectly square or rectangular!

People - lots of tourists. Our street is one where multiple tour groups are shepherded along each day. The walk we did, there would have been up to a dozen tourists doing a variant, some with audio guides, and if you watched people on close to you and what they were stopping to look at, you noticed more than your own tour provided.

Locals - if they are going somewhere, they're going fast! never seen such a pace going up escalators near the trains. There's the normal pace stream, wand the nearly running stream...
Otherwise, they amble and chat, sit in parks and cafes for hours, very casually.
We are being ultra-polite, as guidebooks tell us to be. In every place, we bonjour and au revoir, and that, along with the one or two words I cobble together have been working perfectly well. everyone here is so used to their job, and to tourists, that they then respond appropriately and everything is lovely! They all are highly (extremely politely) amused or indifferent at our standing back and hovering until we work out pricing and entry times ,and menus etc.

Paris is just as good as my best hopes, the apartment is has lots of very tiny rooms, and a narrow circular stair to our 2nd floor, also a lift big enough for two people. I tried taking photos, but it's just too hard. This link has the pictures we saw before we came, and they are better than I could do. http://ryanair.alwaysonvacation.co.uk/holiday-rentals/793311.html

Mountainous molehill

Warthog?

Rue de rosier

We decided to take an evening stroll along the Seine. So, first look up sunset. Um - 9.30pm. So we decide to set off half an hour before to get to the Notre Dame part of the river by around sunset. All is well, and we get tere, and we stroll, and we admire the river, and watch the pedestrians, and pass the time. By 10pm the cathedral starts to light up, along with the streetlights. By 10.30 pm we are tired of waiting for full dark, and we wander home. Yes, it's mostly dark, but the sky is still definitely blue, (deep blue, sure),but not what I would call full night.... And it's still around the same temperature it has been all day - comfortable, warm, nice...
So, I pity the parents of small children, because this is only spring. Those children are never going to be going to bed at 'night'. I haven't dared find out when dawn is -, but it's certainly 'day' by 6am....

We've been doing a bit more travel by bus and metro to get us to our starting points. It is very easy, cheap. and convenient. It also makes me very glad we are doing so much walking. On foot, I notice the detail, the people, the architecture. On a 'transport' I start getting 'any city' vibes, a blur of cars and noise and streets blurring past.

Yesterday we went to Roland Garros for our day of tennis. It was the coldest cloudiest day yet (19 degrees), and Bob had decided that he'd cope with just a shirt, so he spent most of the day bravely shivering, but being too nice to drag us home while I was having fun. We had tickets jus to roam the grounds, and could get into the courts from 2 to 17, where the less famous players lurk. We saw three matches that we wanted to see, with a bit of other matches beforehand, since we always got there a little early. We saw Stubbs and Dellaqua win their doubles, Bagdahtis lose his singles, and most of Dolgopolov winning his match. We left before the end of that one, as it was 8.30 pm, and the bits of sun had really left the court for the day. It was amazing how close to the courts we were, and how each court gave us a very different view point - higher or lower, side or back makes a huge difference!

It's time to show my pictures.

The Tuilleries

It's better closer to the water

Strawberries are 4 Euros per kilo, so I couldn't resist a punnet for 2 Euros. They tasted fabulous!

One of the many victory statues

We were heading for the lake and gardens, and we saw this fabulous building as we came near

t's the Chateau Vincennes, which Bob as a castle expert says was one of the best he had ever seen. We went inside and explored thoroughly, very happy with a lucky find!

Aster a long walk, it's nice to find a lake to rest by

We waited in line for the standard two hours

I was trying to capture what I mean by the untidy but boxed courtyard houses. These are neater than ones further out, because they fill their block rather than being 3 to 4 houses to make a block

You just gotta take a picture before you gotta walk down the Chaps Elysees. You just gotta do your gotta's

I find the boxed trees very strange, but from this aspect, you can see the point...

We were in a museum with lots of medieval war stuff, and lots of suits of armour carefully laid out and explained. Then on the way out, you see the storeroom/knight's wardrobe. On the wall behind are the spare weapons.

Street art

More street art. A more temporary display outside a museum of contemporary art

A painted pillar in the Les Halles shopping mall. I may be doing the warthog spotting tour of Europe!

We are going into most churches we find. And there is a church every few blocks, so we've seen more churches than museums or other sights!
They are all very beautiful, and very much in need of restoration

Each alcove has a stained glass window, and there are oil paintings painted directly on the walls on each side of the alcove. The paintings are usually very dark and faded, so you have to try to make out what it might be about. The churches are surprisingly filled with tourists. Even the smallest has a continuous stream of people wandering around, so it doesn't feel too intrusive to go and look yourself.

This garden is on an ordinary street about 5 minutes walk from home

So, that's my photos up to the 26 th of May.

Whenever we go into an official site/sight, they ban photos, so the only ones I am taking are of things that catch my eye as we wander around. I am also not taking pictures of artwork in shops etc, which is very sad, as some art shops have brilliant stuff.