There's something about markets......

6/4/13 & 7/4/13 Saturday & Sunday
I don't know what it is, but there's something special and fun for me about shopping at outdoor markets - I know it's not everybody's cup of tea but it's definitely one of mine. The displays usually look abundant and wonderfully fresh, the atmosphere is busy and exciting, the vendors call out to potential customers advertising their wares (and sometimes offer samples, chat and joke with their regulars, and are generally helpful to newcomers in every way. If I see an outdoor market (or a suspicion of an indoor one) I'm just drawn to it. I realise that may be completely incomprehensible to some who abhor the crowds, the jostling, the noise.......... hmmm.
Whenever I'm in my home state of Tasmania I feel the urge to go to Hobart's famous and truly sensational Salamanca markets on Saturdays at least once while I'm there. I haven't travelled that widely overseas, so forgive me if I'm a little parochial, but I actually consider this to be one of the best outdoor markets in the world - it's so much more than just fresh fruit and vegetables. So there's a shameless plug - if you're in Hobart, don't miss it.
I've really loved discovering new markets and revisiting familiar ones while we've been here in Paris. We've returned to Marché Bastille (on Bouevard Richard Lenoir, just a hop, skip and jump from our apartment) on several occasions - sometimes it's really crowded, and other times not, and when it's not so busy it's fun engaging with the stall-holders with our little bit of French and their little bit of English. One man even asks what we call his produce in English, which is a bit of a novelty as it's usually me asking those sorts of questions. He's the nut vendor but seems not to be familiar with the word "nut", which I find amazing!!

We like to lash out at the poissonnerie and buy lots of salmon and filets du cabillaud (which Google translates as "cod fillets") because it always looks so wonderfully fresh - it's delicious when my clever fish-chef husband cooks it for dinner!!
One vendor asks us where we're from - when we reply "Australie" he says "Oh, you're welcome"!!! How nice to be welcome because we're from Australia (as opposed to somewhere else in the world from where we would be considered less welcome, I guess - I wonder where that might be........) ;-)
Another day we discover a variation of this market a little further up the same boulevard, and some of the vendors are familiar - they must do the rounds. I love the way they allow us to try out some French, don't mind when I ask them what words to use, and then sometimes ask us to give them English words in exchange :-)
One stallholder charges us double for our carrots, but then throws in 8 mandarins - does he feel bad for taking advantage of the naive tourists who struggle to catch what he says as he rattles off the required amount in French? Whatever it is, we don't feel inclined to haggle over an extra euro and the mandarins turn out to be delicious :-) The fresh fruit and vegetables seem to be much cheaper and of better quality at the markets - our local supermarkets are fine for groceries, but the fruit and vegies leave a little to be desired.

Our apartment host has left us a shopping cart (you know the type, you trundle it along behind you and it fits lots of stuff inside) and I never remember to take it until I find myself struggling home and up two flights of stairs with bags of shopping - darn, should've brought the trolley (I always over-buy......). But on one outing to Marché Aligre I remember to take it and I definitely put it to good use. It's so much better than carting heavy bags (once I get over the initial feeling of looking like a granny.........)
Walking home yesterday we discover the Marché aux fleurs et aux oiseaux Cité on the island not far from Notre Dame. I adore fresh flowers so a market called the Market of Flowers (and birds) in spring in Paris? I'm there! I'm expecting it to be like the Campo de' Fiori in Rome - stall after stall of gorgeous colourful flowers - but I find it a little disappointing, it's actually more like a series of nursery stalls selling plants (beautiful, granted) but not fresh bunches of flowers. No birds either, they're just on Sundays. Oh well, now that we're here we might as well browse...... :-)

Today we shop again at Marché Bastille for fruit, vegetables, cheese, bread, nuts and fish. We consider the strange looking saucisses and saucisson, but it's absolutely wall to wall market-goers today and everyone is really busy. I don't think my French is adequate to have the necessarily rushed conversation about exactly what they are and what to do with them! But we're very happy with our purchases today, it's such a satisfying feeling to cart home beautiful fresh and healthy produce (some so fresh they're still crawling around right before our eyes.........!!!).

Mon amour particularly enjoys the buskers, some of them are really talented. Others not so much and are clearly hoping to appeal to those who are tone deaf and have no sense of rhythm or timing............ While I shop for the last few items, my very tolerant and accommodating (and a little less market-loving) husband enjoys the sunshine and the buskers and waits for me - this guy and his mate are very entertaining :-)

On Saturdays this same market hosts the Marche Creation de la Bastille, where artisans can display and sell their paintings, jewellery, and other crafts.

The wonderful thing is that here in Paris there are markets all over the place, and I think I'm going to miss that when I get home!! We'll have to start finding and frequenting some of our own local markets :-)

An epic day at Le Musée du Louvre

5/4/13 Friday
When I last visited Paris at the end of 2005, I had one brief morning to visit le Louvre. In nobody's language was that anywhere near long enough - we went straight to see la Jaconde (otherwise known as Leonardo da Vinci's iconic Mona Lisa) then whizzed around a few other rooms until our teenagers were completely over it, which didn't take long (I think they both got their mother's museum and art gallery tolerance gene.......... it's a very short gene........). So that morning 7 years ago I really only scratched the surface. Today my enthusiastic and optimistic husband and I (slightly less optimistic) are devoting the entire day to this enormous museum and its many thousands of exhibits.......... (do you get the feeling that I'm just gritting my teeth and girding my loins?) ;-)
Having pre-booked our tickets we can get in without having to join the long long queue at the pyramid or anywhere else. I wouldn't bother just rocking up on the day and hoping for the best, I don't think it would be worth the pain. Having said that, though, I did experience a bit of frustration with the ridiculous process involved in online booking and the red-tape required just for two little 11€ tickets to visit a huge museum with about a million other tourists (required fields: name, address, date of birth, phone and email - for goodness sake.........). My wonderful and even-tempered husband saw a different side of me that night (and removed himself to a safe distance to watch the show - just across the other side of the room, which is as far away as you can get in this tiny apartment, good thing we're newly weds)!!! There was also the minor inconvenience of having to walk to the collection venue (our nearest one was only about 10 minutes away), and then the last straw when I forgot to bring the confirmation email with my booking number and, no, she couldn't help me without that number (so why did they need all that other information?????). So we had to make a second trip to pick them up, and all they needed was that one little number and my credit card............grrrrrrr!!! But apart from that, it was totally worth booking in advance ;-)
We caught the Metro to Palais Royal-Musee du Louvre station, which meant that we entered the museum at the Caroussel du Louvre, not nearly as crowded as the Pyramid up the top. And the only thing we had to queue for was security, and even then only for 5 minutes or so.

Once in, we discover that there really isn't much information in English. You can pick up a map that isn't all that easy to navigate because of the three different wings of the museum and several different levels and it can be hard to work out exactly where you are. We decide that an audio guide will be worth the extra money - 5euros each - so I wait in the Cour Manly while my lovely husband goes to get them. He returns with two Nintendo DS units, and then the fun starts and I get to see a different side of my formerly even-tempered and easy-going man - here are my hubby's thoughts on that first hour or so:

I think that 'Louvre' must mean 'long' in French. Long queues, long corridors, wide long staircases, longing to be free from the jostling, seething masses. 40 hectares of 400,000 or so (give or take a few thousand) exhibits, you'd think they'd arrange it so you didn't have to backtrack endlessly in little spaces. Unfortunately the Paris pavement 'two-step' collision (or doggie doo) avoidance manoeuvre is still required in this enormous palace.
I hatch a little theory within the first 30 minutes of trying to get some sense out of the infuriating Nintendo map/audioguide/gps/trailblazer gizmo you have to give up your ID or credit card to acquire. Being a revolutionary and headstrong city, my theory is that there were so many mass destructions of this device they had to start exchanging it for something the volatile masses could not afford to lose. It is certain the joy I would have gained from throwing the thing from the third floor and watching it explode into a million little Nintendo pieces would nearly have been worth the 800 euro left on the credit card they were holding hostage. Ma belle femme says one of the highlights of today's tour was watching me nearly self-implode in the Napoleon rooms trying to wring the stupid thing's neck for some information on Josephine's jewellery cabinet.

Haha, now I don't feel so bad about my own minor meltdown over the ticket booking process...... ;-)
Finally, the frustration starts to ease and we get into the rhythm of button-pressing and locating rooms and item numbers, and we're on our way..........
So, what do we see and what do we enjoy? The Napoleon apartments are amazing, full of chandeliers and gold trim.

There's that beautiful jewellery cabinet that was made for Napoleon's wife, Josephine (yes, we do eventually manage to wrestle some helpful information about this from the Nintendo), but sadly for her she didn't get to enjoy it for long.

It was completed in the same year that Napoleon divorced her, and she clearly wasn't allowed to take it with her (I guess the next wife got to put her jewellery in it). So "Not tonight Josephine" was obviously a sign that all was not well in the Boneparte household!!! ;-)

We also really enjoy seeing underneath the Louvre, which was originally a fortress built to protect Paris. In the underground part we walk in what used to be part of the moat, and around the foundations of the fortress.

The rest of the time we spend hopping between Richelieu, Sully and Denon, the three main wings of the museum. It's not easy to navigate such an enormous space with so many interconnected rooms, and some areas currently closed for renovation, but we've now got the hang of our little Nintendos so we can call up the map any time to see where we are - in theory anyway!!! ;-)

Yes, we do eventually get around to seeing Venus and Mona, along with the hordes, and there's something curiously satisfying about seeing such icons up close, and the audio guide does explain the significance of them and why they're so revered, but really I think it's largely just chance that makes one piece of art famous and another fade into obscurity - why Mona and not one of da Vinci's other portraits? Why Venus and not another of the many beautiful sculptures we pass today? Who really knows.
As expected, we see the usual plethora of paintings and items dedicated to Mary and the infant Jesus. I thought after Florence that I would never see so many all in the one place again, but clearly I was seriously misguided and naive about that. I wonder what percentage of the items in le Louvre are related in some way to God, Jesus, Mary, the disciples, the apostles, the crucifixion, and the resurrection?

Some of the rooms are more beautiful and inspiring than the art they contain, and we spend a lot of time  gazing up at ceilings, admiring the incredible detail in the decorations and the ceiling paintings. We also enjoy the unique view of the courtyards and the Seine from various windows along the way, and we take our time in the exhibitions of Egyptian, Greek and Roman antiquities, and the paintings from French, Italian and other artists.

And my husband's thoughts on all of this, once he recovers from his earlier frustration?

Umm, sorry........... the Louvre. I see a vase from 3800 BC that I think is great :-)

A painting about the 'massacre of the protestants' in the 15th century is interesting because of the event it depicts. The painter equates the event with the murder of Christians in the colosseum. The Jewish museum spoke about similar atrocities (claiming it was aimed at them), but the victims were Jews who had become Christians.

How anyone could carve statues so magnificent out of anything as hard as marble so accurately and get so smooth a finish is a mystery to me. And there is some great woodwork in there.

The Palace itself is fascinating. Enormous, lavish. Given that the people at the time of the revolution were suffering a lack of basic necessities like bread, their consternation at the opulence of the monarchy is understandable.

Do we manage to see everything? Not even close. Do we even get to every level of every wing? We do not! But we're determined to keep on going and we push through the pain because, darn it, we're not coming back for a second day! And I'm so proud of myself - not really a museum or art gallery person I expected I would be done after 3 or 4 hours, but NO!! We walk out of there just after 7pm, nearly 9 hours with only a short lunch break. That's a world record for me, and apart from the last hour or so where my beautiful man has to twist my arm to keep going just a teensy bit longer so he can see Mesopotamia, I actually really enjoy the whole experience - despite my aching feet. I'm not the only one aching though............

At the end of the day, everything aches, from brain to toes. But as ma femme says, 'I'm glad we've finally done the Louvre, we don't have it hanging over our heads any longer'. Its presence does hold you hostage, pay the ransom and do your penance, and all will be well.

So please don't ever think that even a whole day at le Louvre is long enough to see everything - as we head up the spiral stairs to exit via the pyramid (just because we can.....) I ask mon cher mari how long he thinks it would take to see absolutely everything that there is to see in the place - not necessarily to stop and read every item or contemplate its beauty (or otherwise), but just to eyeball every one of the thousands and thousands of items of art and history in the permanent collection (let alone the temporary exhibitions)!!! Neither of us has any idea, and we don't even really know how close we come today (not very, I would suspect) or what percentage of the total we manage even to walk past today.
Nevertheless, we are done!!! So, tired and very satisfied with our efforts, we head home for a late dinner and the promise to each other not to do any more museums........... for a day or so anyway.

Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie

4/4/13 Thursday
Yesterday while cruising the canal next to the Parc de la Villette, in the north-east of the city, we passed by the Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie, a centre promoting science and science culture, so I guess it's Paris' equivalent of Canberra's Questacon or Scitech in Perth (although on a much larger scale......). It caught the interest of mon amour so that's where we're heading today (and being the sacrificial femme that I am, I'm willingly giving up an afternoon of shopping in Paris........) ;-)

The place is built inside a converted abattoir sales hall and the building itself is now a work of contemporary art. We begin at the Leonardo da Vinci exhibition - a display of his drawings and plans together with some models of his amazing designs - he certainly had an incredible mind and was very talented in many arenas.

The rest of the afternoon we spend looking at a range of displays and exhibitions - Earthwatch, Sounds, Light games, Transport and man, Man and his genes, Futurotextiles, Energy, Design observer, and the Innovations Gallery, among others. The display that I find most intriguing (unsurprisingly) is part of the Sounds exhibition - four 10 month old babies babbling in their native language (one English, one French, one Arabic and one Cantonese), and an explanation of the emerging characteristics of each particular tongue even at this young age - clear variations in intonation, types of sounds, hard and soft onsets............ That's what language immersion from birth will do for you, and that's why it's so hard for me to learn French at my age!!!!

The only downside is the hordes of noisy school children on excursions to the museum, but that's to be expected in a place like this. It is, after all, mostly aimed at school-aged children, and therefore a little disappointingly lacking in adult-level information and interest.

Outside in the grounds is an enormous geodesic dome, which is one of my husband's favourite things but since this one is a cinema inside and when we're done with the exhibits it's raining outside, we don't bother standing in the rain to have a closer look but head straight for the Metro, the pâtisserie and chez nous :-)

A canal with a difference

3/4/13
We seem to have a bit of a water theme going this week - the Seine yesterday, and today the Canal Saint-Martin - but it's really just that we want to make the most of the lovely weather and enjoy some outdoor activities while we can. Who knows when it will be back to cold, grey, wet or even snowy!!!
Today our plan is to hop on the Canauxrama cruise up the canal, leaving from the nearby Port de l'Arsenal marina just down the street from the Place de la Bastille.
The beautiful sunny morning couldn't manage to stick around any longer and by the time we get on board the weather has changed and a cold (colder.....!) front has blown in. But we still choose to sit on the top deck so as to enjoy the trip and the view as much as possible before the weather sends us below deck.

There's a lot of history around this canal, which was built by order of Napoleon I between 1806 and 1825. The first part of the cruise takes us under the voûte du temple et de la Bastille, an underground vault that goes for 2km right under the Place de la Bastille and beyond. The oldest part of this vault dates to 1835, so was obviously built over the open canal some time later. It's an eerie experience traveling along an underground canal, although there are ventilation shafts every few metres which allow in the natural light and fresh air from the boulevard above. Towards the end of the tunnel, a Japanese artist has installed a light show on the walls, which is accompanied by rousing classical music and is a lovely experience. The rest of the way, we are regaled by Edith Piaf and Charles Aznavour, and it all feels very Parisian!!

On our way to the end of the line at Parc de la Villette in the north-east of Paris, we pass through 4 double locks so that we can rise by 25 metres from the start of the cruise (at Seine river level) to the end. I don't think I've ever been on a canal before let alone one with locks. It's actually quite exciting going into each lock, waiting for the gates to close behind us, then watching the sluices open and the water come pouring in to raise the level in the lock so we can pass through. We have a great view of it all from the top deck.

There are footbridges over the canal at each lock, and people gather to watch the process and wave to the boat. One little boy is very excited and pulls on his grandmother's arm as soon as the lock gates begin to open. He wants to race the boat and so she runs with him up the side of the canal until she's too puffed to go any further - that's the sort of granny my sons had when they were little xoxo :-)

It's a very enjoyable journey over a couple of hours even though eventually the icy wind forces us inside where it's cosy but we still have a great view. This is the canal that we walked last week, which gave us a great perspective from above.
The trip ends at Bassin de la Villette from where it's just a quick journey home on the Metro after a lovely and historically interesting afternoon.

Le soleil et la Seine

2/4/13 Tuesday
Earlier this week a friend posted photos on FB of her children having lots of fun at the beach in Perth - blue sky and sunshine on the lovely white sand - so typical of beautiful Perth. Well, we haven't seen sand in a while, but that same sunshine and blue sky have graced Paris with their presence for the last couple of days - not quite the same temperatures, I admit, but we're still loving it and making the most of it.
Being fairly averse to hanging out with hordes of tourists as we both are (and I think that's what has kept us from places like the Louvre so far, but we'll get there eventually............) and wanting to get out in this glorious sunshine again before it disappears as it has been so inclined to do, we decide to do a river cruise today, of a sort anyway. We've seen lots of different boats going up and down the river as we've walked along the Seine, and we briefly consider the popular and well-patronised Bateaux-Mouches or Bateaux Parisiens, but instead we opt to get an all-day hop-on hop-off pass on the Batobus, which is like the public transport of the Seine. It has 8 stations along the river on both the Right and Left Banks, from Jardin des Plantes to La Tour Eiffel, and the boats come every 25 minutes or so. Our tickets allow us to "monter et descendre où on veut, quand on veut........" or in other words "get on and off where we like, when we like........." at any station along the way, any time between 10am and 7pm. The only thing missing is the commentary as you travel (and the crowds). It suits us fine!

The Seine is a murky olive-greenish/brownish colour day in and day out - overcast, rainy, snowy, sunny, it doesn't seem to change colour, and I guess it's not surprising given the amount of river traffic - it's an important commercial waterway. Compared to the beautiful Swan, if you were to go by colour alone, it doesn't look like much. But the Seine is beautiful in its own way, with its 37 bridges, its paved banks with lovely deciduous trees, and the many classic Parisian buildings framing this waterway. We've had conversations about what it would be like to live in Paris for a period of time like a year. As we've walked along the Seine in the past couple of weeks, we've gazed up at buildings that would most likely be residential and wondered if we'd like to live there, but in the end I think we'd both miss our space in a very short time. I think about the magnificent Jacaranda tree in our backyard (my new backyard!!) and sitting on the swing on the deck in the warm afternoon breeze - yes, I'm pretty sure I'd miss that very much. And I'd definitely miss the Swan River.

We board the Batobus at Jardin des Plantes, one of the lovely public garden spaces in Paris that we have yet to explore properly - hopefully on another sunny day with a picnic in hand.......... We decide to go all the way to Avenue des Champs-Élysées on our first trip up the river, so we can relax and enjoy all that Paris has to offer from this river view along the Seine, in the beautiful sunshine, before things get too populated and frantic.

It truly is a beautiful day - cold, ok I'll admit it, but being out on the rear deck in the glorious sunshine is heavenly and we're fairly sheltered from the breeze. Because we got started relatively early this morning, the crowds haven't really emerged yet and we alight at the Champs-Élysées station with the plan to walk up the Avenue (on the sunny side of course) then head diagonally through the 16e to the next Batobus station at La Tour Eiffel.
When I first came up the Champs-Élysées on my bus tour in the first week, I hoped I might get to see the trees in leaf before I leave Paris. I have my doubts now, as they're still bare and wintry looking. Hopefully a few more sunny days might convince the leaves that it's really spring. Today it's a pleasure to be walking in the sunshine.

We browse on the Avenue - the lovely Kusmi tea shop, Lancel, Louis Vuitton, Mercedes Benz, and my motor-sport enthusiast husband particularly enjoys the Renault shop - then it's time for lunch, another citron sucre crêpe, and yet another magnificent chocolate ganache macaron from the little bistro we found the other night.

Back on board for a loop along the river to Hôtel de Ville where we get off for a bit more shopping and wandering, then back on for another full loop up and down the river, sitting on the rear deck in the soporific sunshine for about an hour - aaahhh, this is the life. My photographer husband snaps over 500 shots of life on the river banks of Paris.

We end our journey where we began and I would highly recommend this way of seeing the Seine in all its glory, particularly if you don't want to do the full-on touristic river cruise thing.

Tonight we dine at Chez Papa's, authentic French cuisine from the south-west and just a short walk from the Place de la Bastille, overlooking the canal. Delicious food and plenty of it :-)

A literary loop and a gospel recital

1/4/13 Monday
April in Paris!! Yes, well I'm hoping it will live up to its reputation but it will have to warm up significantly in order to do so. I have a message from our apartment host checking to see how we're going and how we're coping with the cold. She says she's never known such cold at this time of year. We're just lucky I guess........ :-/
However, today is lovely (read: the sun is shining........) and so as to make the most of what could well be a short-lived burst of fine weather (given recent history!), we pick another of the Lonely Planet Paris Guide neighbourhood walks - this time we take the "Latin Quarter Literary Loop". I've really loved spending time in this part of town, it would definitely be one of my favourite areas for wandering, together with the Marais district on the Right Bank. I keep coming back (to both areas) and there's always more to see.
We stroll down to and across the river as we've done many times now, and start this particular walk at Cardinal Lemoine Metro station as suggested, following the map in the LP guide. There are many well-known literary (and other, some more dubious in their "fame") figures who are said to have resided in the Left Bank area at various times. There aren't really any monuments or locations worthy of a photograph, although the old architecture is interesting and sometimes beautiful, as we've come to expect in this city, and there is generally a plaque at each location detailing who lived or worked there, and when, and a bit of relevant information about the person and the site.

The map starts with the former home of James Joyce, the Irish author of "Ulysses", and leads us past the previous residences and haunts of other literary figures such as Ernest Hemingway, Henry Miller, Jean-Paul Sartre & Simone de Beauvoir, Gertrude Stein, and others. According to the LP guide, many of them came to Paris in the early part of last century because it was cheap, they could freely obtain alcohol and drugs, and there was a culture of sexual experimentation and 'anything goes'......! I've not read anything written by any of them - call me a pleb, but I have no idea whether they were literary giants for good reason or none and I can't really say I have any desire to read them now that I've seen where they lived in Paris!!

However, I have recently read "The Paris Wife" by Paula McLain, which is a fiction based on fact, set at the time that Hemingway was an upcoming young writer (two of his novels - "A Moveable Feast" and "The Sun Also Rises" - were written in Paris at this time). McLain's novel gives voice to Ernest's wife Hadley and her struggle with her role as his wife and a woman during the twenties in Paris.

The quote on the plaque at his former home reads: "Tel était Paris de notre jeunesse au temps où nous étions trés pauvres et trés heureux" or (more or less, forgive my French translation) "Such was the Paris of our youth, a time when we were very poor and very happy". I don't think Ernest was particularly easy to live with and I don't think Hadley was very happy!!! She was the first of four wives for him, and their marriage lasted only 6 years - interesting quote under the circumstances I would have thought!! Hemingway seemed to be a bit of a tortured soul and committed suicide in 1961 at the age of 61.
We locate the studio where Picasso lived and worked at a time when he was completing one of his major works "Guernica" in 1937 (we won't get to view this one at the Louvre or anywhere else in Paris - it resides at a museum in Madrid). The hôtel particulier where Picasso lived also featured in Balzac's novel "Le Chef d'Oeuvre Inconnu" (or "The Unknown Masterpiece") - again, not one currently on my bedside table ;-)

The entire "literary loop" walk covers about 7km and the LP Guide recommends allowing 3 hours, but I'm pretty sure it would take longer than that to follow the entire route and see everything at a leisurely pace, with stops along the way for pleasant interludes and conversation. We stroll and chat and enjoy the sunshine, stopping at another Japanese restaurant for lunch, and we end up only doing about half the walk, but it's very enjoyable to walk the streets of sunny Paris (I haven't been able to say that too often!!!) and get more of a feel for this area with an added twist of interest.

We find one real time-warp, a little passage dating from the 1600s with lovely uneven cobbled paving that testifies to its age, and lots of interesting little shops. We end our tour at the original Shakespeare & Company Bookshop at 12 rue de l'Odeon, where founder-editor Sylvia Beach lent books to Hemingway and edited, retyped and published James Joyce's "Ulysses" in 1922 - another one to add to my list of "must reads"................

Our final stop, while we're over that way, is the lovely Église Saint-Germain des-Pres, the oldest church in Paris.

We've noticed posters around the streets advertising a gospel choir performance and this church is one of the venues - tonight! So as we sit inside the church for a while, enjoying the amazing frescoes and listening to rehearsals for another concert - excerpts from Handel's Messiah - we decide we'll get tickets to the gospel event tonight.

In the end, it's a little disappointing. We were expecting better acoustics and a more polished performance, but it's still energetic, enthusiastic, evangelical and enjoyable. Interestingly, some leave part-way through the concert - too much Gospel for their 25€?? I wonder what they were expecting..........

Ou sont les toilettes?

Paris is really pretty good when it comes to public toilets. Quite frequently, on or near a corner in the busier parts of town, you'll find one of those grey, stand-alone, automated, self-washing, Tardis-like cubicles (Melbourne has some, if you're familiar.......). They come complete with audio instructions at every button push..........en français over here, of course, which is a little disconcerting the first time............what is she saying? I hope she's not telling me there's an emergency and the doors are about to open, I'm not finished yet.........!!!

Being the cautious traveller I am, and a girl all alone in a foreign city, I wasn't brave enough to use them before my protector ;-) arrived in Paris - there's something about a very public space, being in a compromised state in an automated cubicle, that just screamed NO to me in a very loud voice. It made my first week here interesting though - cold, cold weather, out walking for hours at a time.......... But sometimes you don't want to have to buy yet more frites from McDonald's just so you can use the loos.
So it was a relief, once I had an ally standing outside guarding the door, to find that these public amenities are actually quite acceptable :-) Mostly the cubicles are pretty clean - not my standards of cleanliness, granted, but clean enough - much easier for blokes, of course, but a few strategically placed strips of toilet paper is all it takes and we girls are good to go too. I've never yet come across one that's run out of paper (the curse of public toilets for women) or has an empty soap dispenser - it's all automated, you just wave your hands under the sensor for a squirt of soap, a stream of (cold, cold, cold!!) water, and a nice long blast of hot air. Just for the record, my winter tip is to make sure hands are thoroughly dry before you exit into the icy breeze, and my extra precaution is to carry and use an antibacterial gel and dry under the hot air again - ok, yes, what can I say, I'm a very cautious traveller!!! ;-)

(Who's that taking a photo of the public toilet???...........must be a foreigner.........)
After each use, the cubicle goes into it's lavage (wash) cycle (so don't think you can quickly duck in after the last person..........) and you may have to wait a few minutes before it's ready for the next use. But there's comfort in knowing it's just been washed before you step inside............ :-) There's also a 20 minute limit on cubicle use, which makes the mind boggle about potential motives for spending longer in there........ Occasionally we've come across a cubicle where the queue is long, or there's been an unfortunate incident inside that makes itself known when the doors open - ooops, not that one then - but we just quickly move on and find the next, which isn't usually that far away. Except for Sunday night, it seemed........
After decent amounts of green tea with dinner, then a fairly long walk in the icy breeze, and having planned to stay at the tower from sunset until when we thought the first light show would be likely to start (an hour later than previous nights because of daylight savings...........) we want to find a familiar grey tardis so that we can be comfortable and relaxed to enjoy the Eiffel Tower at her finest. Having walked that walk recently, I'm pretty sure we saw no amenities along the river, and tonight confirms we're right, so we take a detour a few streets away, towards a main road, an intersection, the usual suspects. Nothing, nothing, and nothing........
Can we hold on until the show ends (it's only about 5 minutes of sparkly lights, after all) then hop on the Metro for a quick trip home? No, too much green tea and an icy breeze will do it every time.
We can't believe the ubiquitous public loos could let us down just when we need them to come through!! We're running out of time to get ourselves sorted before the 9pm light show, and don't want to have to wait another hour for the next one. Eventually we decide the best plan is to go into a cafe or bar, order a couple of hot chocolates, use the amenities, and cut our (financial and calorific) losses. We quickly scan the menus that all bistros have outside on the footpath - can't find hot chocolate, but they have other options (not cheap......) so.......oh well, it's the price you pay for comfort....... in we go. We find a table for two near the back, and wait to be served. Service is really slow tonight, and honestly, we probably could have got away with ducking into the WC and departing before anyone noticed and without having to buy anything at all. But our moral consciences say "do the right thing", so we make a quick change to the plan - you go, I'll go to the counter and get something to take away, you come back, I'll go, then we'll be on our way.
Ok, the plan works...........aahhh, that's better. But that little toilet break has just cost us 9.50€!! Oh well. Outside again we turn to head down to the tower. Right in front of us is a sign pointing à gauche - Toilettes 50m. What? Where? We didn't see them before!! How could we have missed it???

Darn it, now we'll just have to eat that caramel éclair and chocolate macaron (quite possibly the most delicious I've had............) while we view the sparkly lady tonight - such a shame ;-)