Weekend in Paris

When we toured Europe we decided to leave Paris as the thought of driving in to that city was just too much!! The idea of a long weekend in Paris at a later date was more appealing so that’s what we did.
To travel there, we took the train from Great Yarmouth, changed at Norwich to reach Liverpool Street. From there we caught the tube to St Pancras to travel by Eurostar to Paris. The St Pancras international station has only been operating for two weeks so everything was very new and upmarket, with many areas still being completed. Our journey was very smooth and comfortable and we arrived at our destination at midnight. Their tube system was on the go slow but thank goodness there were plenty of taxis available. Our accommodation was on the border of Montmarte so everywhere was walkable! On Saturday we walked down to through Ste-Marie Madeleine to Place De La Concorde and along the bank of the Seine towards Centre Georges Pompidou. This centre with its primary colours, exposed pipes and air ducts make it one of the best known sights in Paris. The architects won a competition with their ‘inside-out’ boiler house approach which put the air conditioning pipes, lifts and the escalators on the outside, leaving an adaptable space within. From here we walked over the bridge to the Notre Dame, an imposing Gothic landmark. This was reconstructed after the war and is the third church to stand on this site. The first was built in the third century and the second was ransacked by Vikings. Most of what we see today was built in the 12th & 13th C and the intricate west façade was painted 30 odd times by Monet. It was a short walk to the Latin Quarter, which boasts many cobbled streets and has been the university quarter since medieval times, with lovely churches, wonky ancient buildings, studenty bars and learning institutions. As it was near lunch time, we ventured into the Jardin du Luxembourg park to eat our lunch and enjoy the bare winter trees and watch other people making the most of this attractive outdoor area. We wanted to visit one of their many museums, so settled for Musee Rodin. Rodin a very wellknown sculptor and the museum (formerly his house) is where he lived for the last few years of his life. By now the light was beginning to fade, so we headed towards our hotel. As we crossed Champs-Elysees, we noticed all the Christmas lights in the trees that lined the street all the way to the Arc de Triomphe so stopped to take a picture. It just looked so beautiful. When we hit our hotel, we flaked on the bed for an hour before putting on the footwear again to head out for a meal.
On Sunday we headed back to Place De La Concorde and up the Champs-Elysees, passed Grand Palais and diverted along Winston Churchill Avenue to take a picture of his statue. Eventually we reached Arc de Triomphe (Napoleon had this built as a monument to the triumph of his armies) and climbed its 284 steps to view Paris! On we walked to the Eiffel Tower ( built as a temporary structure for the 1889 world fair) where we just took photos – the queues were too long and we didn’t feel like lining up and waiting. After viewing this, we wandered through the Parc du Champ de Mars, passed Hotel des Invalides to Saint Chapelle, (once again amazing stain glass windows which depict hundreds of scenes from the Old and New Testaments) which we missed yesterday. As the daylight started to fade, we headed back towards Montmarte and up to Sacre-Coeur to view the lights of Paris switching on. The climb up was killing us (well me anyway!)at this end of the day but well worth the effort once we reached the top. Another beautiful church, but this one was only completed in 1919 – amazingly young!! On the way down we enjoyed an Italian meal before retiring and ready for our journey home on Monday morning. A wonderful, action packed weekend!