Vive la France!

If for nothing more than their crazy outfits...

Paris Surprise

Well, Steven went to work on the morning of Friday May 12th. My job was to assemble items for a Eurostar on-board pic-nick, collect Patty & Bill, and get them to Waterloo Station. I managed to hail a taxi right on Golborne Road, the folks were waiting on the stoop of their B&B, there was little traffic, we reached the station by 12:15, and I retrieved the tickets without a hitch. Then I realized I had forgotten my passport at home. Raced to Notting Hill Gate on the tube and hailed a taxi which waited downstairs while I ran inside, then headed back. Got through security just as the boarding announcement was made.

The ride was good. Every time the train went through a tunnel Patty asked if it was the Chunnel. We reviewed some Paris materials I had collected, looked at maps, etc. After checking in to our hotel we walked to Boulevard St. Germain and had an aperitif at Les Deux Magots before taking a taxi over to Au Bon Accueil for dinner with Kath & “cousin” Katherine. The Eiffel Tower loomed over the end of the block and did its glittery thing as we left the restaurant. We were so close we decided to stroll over (and under) before dropping P&B at the hotel and heading to the Marais to meet our friend Kerem (Turkish guy we met in Istanbul).

Bill’s appetizer
Glittering





The next morning there was some drama: Patty’s passport was missing. No Eurostar lost & found on weekends. Ditto the previous night’s restaurant: fermé. The American embassy is also closed on weekends but of course has a 24/7 help line. We found out that they open at 9am on Monday and that it would take 4 hours to get a replacement. The only problem was that our flight to London departed at 10:50am and Patty & Bill’s flight to Glasgow departed an hour later. So we rescheduled their flight to the next day and they were faced with the prospect of a day and night in Paris on their own.

We headed over to Ile de la Cîté and gorgeous Sainte-Chapelle, which elicited appropriate gasps. After lunch at a place across the street (where Bill had a mind-expanding European cultural experience you’ll have to ask him about), we strolled through the flower market, past Notre-Dame, and across to Ile St-Louis (“Ice Cream Island”) for some Berthillon goodies.

Back on the Left Bank we left P&B to rest and took a speedy stroll around the ’hood.

French graffiti

Returning to the hotel to collect the folks for dinner, we learned of the discovery of the passport. In the passport holder. I won’t tell who put it there or who found it. Glasgow flight switched back to Monday. Water under the bridge. We headed to Les Deux Magots for our aperitif.

On the way
“Mosquito”
French EANABs

Our dining mission was to conquer a plateau des fruits de mer at La Coupole.

Deco floor
More floor
The plateau

Exhausted after a nearly silent dinner spent concentrating on the intense labor of using specialized tools to extract various sea creatures from their respective enclosures, we returned to our hotel and collapsed.

The next morning we breakfasted at Ladurée. Insane. Follow the link. You’ll see. Then we walked down to the Luxembourg Gardens and spent a while just sitting before inspecting the toy sailboat operation. After checking out the Statue of Liberty’s Mini-Me, we miraculously found a taxi and headed over to Place des Vosges. After lunch we took a peek at the Pompidou Center, which I thought Bill would get a kick out of (he did).

Li’l Lady
Knife rack
Green broom!
Pompidou





We then had an opportunity to check out an area we hadn’t visited before: sort of north Marais/Montorgueil...

Decorative grill
Patina
Baroque

Dinner was back on Ile St-Louis at Mon Vieil Ami. It was fab.

Veal belly
Rognions
Quack
Coffee
Berries

Au revoir, Paris!

Hotel stairs

One Bridge, Two Bridge...

Red Bridge, Blue Bridge! France is just so... French. I don't have any pictures for this part because when I whipped out the camera (sorry, "device") as the plane landed at CDG (coach, no upgrade) it told me there was no more memory. I was too freaked out to deal with deleting things until I got the thumbs-up sign from the pillbox/sailor hat-wearing Hoverspeed lady in Calais. I'll just tell you that the bridges over the Autoroute were painted alternating lego-like colors (red, blue, yellow, green) and that Alice's paws did touch French soil (or sand, but she was too catatonic to do any business). Oh, and how much am I kicking myself that I didn't take pictures of CDG-1, that technological octopus of undulating moving metal and rubber walkways whisking passengers through criss-crossing glass tubes?

Anyway, here's Alice waiting to be loaded (as cargo) onto the ferry in Calais:


These are our papers. Alice's had to be faxed someplace for authorization to enter the UK, which was a little touch-and-go since the vet in SF filled out all her forms using the American date format:


This is the Hoverspeed waiting area. Let's just say this ain't the Eurostar...


Once on the ferry (which departed over an hour late and took much longer to get across to Dover because one of the engines was broken) I passed out. Alice was somewhere in the cargo hold. I did drag myself out onto the deck to take a look at the white cliffs of Dover:



Here's the gangway at Dover. Kinda reminded me of the Seattle Public Library, but maybe I was just delirious...


Anyhow, we just made it onto a direct train to Victoria Station where Steven met us for the cab ride back to Penzance Place. In Calais, the Hoverspeed hat lady told me that if I was going to be doing any more traveling with the cat I should get a Pet Passport. I told her there would be no more traveling with the cat.

Paris II

Coquille St. Jacques
Ceramic Vase (LB?)
Steven & Craig
Tiles
More street art
View from our loft
Back at Waterloo

Paris I

Taxi from Gare du Nord
Where we had breakfast
Street art?
Katherine & Steven
Pompidou Center
Merchandising
Louvre
Eiffel Tower
Palais de Tokyo
Palais de Tokyo restaurant
Palais de Tokyo gift shop
Palais de Tokyo book store