Our trip to Paris began poorly. Unbeknown to us, beggars are everywhere and will do little chores for you (the kind that we in Australia do out of kindness) and expect to be paid. Then there is the whole language barrier issue. So within minutes of arriving via Eurostar in Paris we had an elderly gent hail a cab for us.....then expect payment. This would have been fine except that we had no Euro coins on us, just a handful of large notes that we'd taken from the ATM. Naturally, the guy got irate and started yelling at us in French. Then he snatched a ten pound note out of my purse as I tried to find him something for payment. It got quite nasty after that and we ended up having quite a tense few moments before it was resolved. We then had a taxi ride to our apartment (5 streets away) which cost us a fortune. All of this, we ended up putting down to experience, but it definitely shook us and was a terrible introduction to Paris!
The rest of the week in Paris, however was great. The Superteen's asthma disappeared immediately. We loved the picturesque buildings and interesting food and we loved visiting places like Montmartre, Giverny, the Eiffel Tower, the Champs Elysee etc. Although we had been warned about arrogant and rude French people, to be honest we found them, on the whole, to be courteous and helpful. One lady behind us on a bus started translating for us and the driver when we were trying to find out if we were going in the right direction. Our apartment was trendy and very close to a metro stop (and the headquarters of Ella Bache which was interesting!), and although food was expensive everywhere, we managed to find places nearby that sold cheap fruit and groceries.
BEST SIGHT-SEEING EXPERIENCE......I loved our day visit to Giverny and Monet's Garden. It was absolutely beautiful and gave a real impression (lol!) of a French country town. DH however loved Montmartre. He says that sitting on the steps outside the Sacre Coeur, listening to street performers and taking in the view was a fantastic experience.
OTHER THINGS WE DID.....We did go to the top floor of the Eiffel Tower, went to Euro-Disney, and spent a day going to the museums and art galleries. The Musee D'Orsay is brilliant if you want to see originals of familiar works of Monet, Renoir, Van Gough etc.
CULINARY DELIGHT.....Paris is supposed to be the food capital of the world although we kept our eating simple as we had a couple of hungry kids with us everywhere we went. We loved the local croissanterie which had gorgeous pastries. We did have dinner at a creperie near Notre Dame which was delicious. We were amazed at how much the French love sugar and Nutella! We were also thrilled that gorgeous French cheese was so inexpensive there compared to home. There was also a gorgeous patisserie in Vernon near the train station that stopped at and the food was just mouth-watering. Unfortunately, I don't know the name of the place.
THE KIDS RECOMMEND.....Disneyland Paris. For both of them, this was the highlight of their trip. For me, it put a huge hole in our budget but was an experience that we'll never forget.
BEST TIP......Buy your Eiffel Tower tickets on line before you leave. This saved us a huge wait. We also loved the tip that most museums and art galleries opened their doors for free on the first Sunday of the month. This saved us a lot of money and we saw the Louvre, Musee De L'Orangerie and Musee D'Orsay.....a full day of fun!
NEXT TIME.....I would like to do a boat trip on the Seine perhaps. And maybe spend more time sitting at a Parisian side-walk cafe (it freaked us out that Europeans always sit side-by-side facing the road at these cafes). We would also do Versailles, I think.
