Getting There

Big excitement, I guess, we flew an A380 from Singapore to Paris. We were on the upper deck, as opposed to the Main deck (nobody's lower). Despite my doubts, the thing did actually fly, although the take off seemed to be at as gradual a trajectory possible. The plane itself was beautifully quiet, even for those of us camping in the back section, well behind the engines and we were able to sleep most of the way to Paris, which was good. We left Auckland at midday Saturday on a 777 and being a day sector, I occupied myself by reading The Economist from cover to cover, while Anne got her fill of chick flicks from the in-flight entertainment system.

The four hours on the ground were from midnight to 4am in our time, so it was hard to stay awake (thankfully Anne did, cos I had a good old snooze in one of the uncomfortable chairs in Singapore Airport).

We arrived into Paris at 7am and set about catching the train into Paris. This was simplicity itself and even carrying our two bags from the airport wasn't too bad, as we bought a wee trolley in Auckland airport before we left. The first train was the RER, which took us in to Notre Dame. We then caught a metro to Mabilon station which is 160m from Hotel La Perle, according to our GPS.

Sadly, our room wasn't ready when we arrived, so we went for a walk for 4 hours while the previous inhabitant checked out and the room was made up.

Hotel La Perle is on the South side of the Seine in Saint Germain in the 6th Arrondissement. Although only a 10 minute walk to the Seine, the area is a web of narrow streets that are chock full of restaurants and bars. There is also a covered market just around the corner. We eventually made our way to and then across the Seine at the Pont Neuf (New Bridge). The Pont Neuf was the first bridge across the Seine – Neuf being new not nine and crosses the Isle de la Cite at its western end. Once over the bridge, we tuned left down Quai des Tuileries until we got to the Louvre, which we wandered around the outside of, then down the Jardin Des Tuileries, through the Place de la Concorde and then halfway up the Champs Elysees until we got to Avenue Winston Churchill where we headed past the Grand and Petit Palaces (one big, one small on either side of the road) and then over the Pont Alexandre III, which is the most impressive bridge in Paris with it winged gold horses at each corner and ornate lamp posts all the way across.

From there it was a short walk back to the hotel, where our room was thankfully ready for us. After a shower we headed out for lunch which we found not far from the hotel sitting outside in the sun. By 4pm a nap was in order and after a very deep “nap”, we headed out for a walk about 9pm. It was Sunday night and all the restaurants and cafés were busy. We walked through the busy streets ending up Notre Dame which was all lite up – beautiful! Equally as beautiful was the Tour Eiffel which has a sparkling light show for 5 minutes on the hour and that was stunning! Midnight and time to go home!