Last full day in Paris

No photos from today unfortunately, due to a minor miscalculation (ie, leaving my memory card in my laptop.  Duh.)  Not that there would have been too much to take photos of, but more on that in a second.

So we were up and out of the apartment by nine – Tim and Greer had a plane to catch in the early afternoon and we wanted to get to the catacombs first.  It was an absolutely perfect day – warm and sunny, the best so far.  Bec was off to try her luck at the Musee d’Orsay again so we bid her farewell and grabbed some bikes again (can I just mention one more time what a fantastic idea they are?) and we headed off down the road in Monday morning peak hour.  Ahh the serenity.  It’s such fun though, you really just forget that you’re not wearing a helmet (nobody does on bikes over here, maybe they don’t want to spoil the coiffure or something…) and that the rest of the road users are trying to kill you, and just get into the swing of things.

We arrived at the entrance to the catacombs right on schedule, 5 minutes before opening time.  Or what would have been opening time.  If it had been going to open.  But being Monday, it was shut.  Obviously.  I did know that quite a few places don’t open on Mondays, but figured that a fairly major tourist attraction wouldn’t be one of them.  How wrong I was.  So instead we had breakfast and jumped back on the bikes, back to the apartment and Tim & Greer headed for the airport.  It’s been a fun week in Paris with Tim (and a fun couple of days with Greer here too!) so I’m hoping I can catch up with them again when I’m back in Europe in a few months.  Thanks guys!

Went down to the Musee d’Orsay to meet Bec for lunch.  And surprise surprise, the museum was shut as well.  Sigh.  So we grabbed baguettes and water and sat in the Tuilleries again to enjoy the moment.  Beautiful gardens all round, the Eiffel tower in plain view, the Louvre a few hundred metres away, sun shining, good food … damn my life is tough.

The afternoon was spent wandering round the Louvre (one of the few attractions that are open on Mondays, apparently) and then we hunted down our highly recommended restaurant from the other night and had dinner there.  And what a bloody disappointment that was.  It was supposedly ‘cheap food in expensive surroundings’.  I think I’d update that slightly, to say ‘cheapish and very mediocre food, in nice surroundings, with abysmal service’.  Blah.  Don’t go out of your way to hunt out Chartiers restaurant in Montemarte next time you’re over this way.  Dessert and a drink in a cafe closer to home, and then back to the apartment to start sorting things out for our departure to Washington DC tomorrow.

So I have to say it … Paris has been absolutely, completely and utterly fantastic.  I take back all of the bad things I’ve ever said about the place (and there were quite a few of them…).  The weather was reasonable and sometimes spectacular, the people were helpful and friendly (something I never thought I’d say), there’s very little dog shit on the streets (another marked improvement from last time I was here) and overall, in the space of a week Paris has gone from being one of my least favourite European cities to one of my favourites.  An extremely pleasant surprise.

Next stop: The U S of A…