They’ve obviously moved on since the Revolution, when there was so little bread that the helpful homemaking advice was to eat cake. Not good advice as it turned out and the French can be rather brutal towards anyone whose advice they don’t like. Just ask Marie Antoinette. But I’m getting ahead of myself, much as she did.
First up we packed up the flat in Brighton and walked up to the station. The walking was my idea, Michelle wasn’t particularly impressed. It’s not that far, about 1.4km, but there is a decent hill involved, and we were dragging cases.
Anyway, we survived that and caught a train to London St Pancras International, where we caught the Eurostar to Paris. Apart from the whole airport-style security arrangements, and one of the platform escalators being out of service at the busiest time, this was a fairly seamless process. Our carriage was only half full, the toilets worked and there was plenty of stowage for the cases.
We didn’t seem to be on the train for long before we were in France. The tunnel bit is about 50km long and is about 70m below sea level. The train gets along at a fair clip, 298 km/h at one stage, so the tunnel bit only takes about 15 minutes. At that rate we were in Paris in no time (well three hours actually, but pretty snappy).
Will we catch a taxi to the Paris apartment, or walk? It’s not that far, and flat, won’t take long, we’ll walk. Another questionable decision. Dragging cases along narrow footpaths and along cobbled roads takes a lot longer than Google maps credits. Anyway, the apartment is great, very roomy with two bedrooms. We’re here until Sunday, or Monday, or some other day.
Bit of a wander around, then we stopped for drinks at one of the many sidewalk cafes. Seriously, there are that many cafes around here that it’s difficult to walk down the street. Love it. Shouldn’t go hungry.
When in France, try the local cuisine. In this case, the menu had escargot.
Done in a garlic butter, they taste like… garlic butter. Chewy garlic butter. Definitely not like chicken, or venison for that matter.
I asked the waitress if they came with bread. “Yes”, she said, “this is Paris, there is always bread”.
And with that, the day is done. Tomorrow some exploration.
Steve and Michelle
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