Janie and I took the Eurostar to Paris and spent four nights there. In 1995 Eurostar was “a thing” – the service had been running for just a few months and indeed the daily service for just a few weeks.
We stayed at Le Relais Medicis, which claims to be a charming hotel on the Left Bank. Actually it was a charming hotel; well located and suitably tasteful without being opulent.
We were very keen to see the Musée d’Orsay and I am pretty sure that was our first proper stop after dumping our luggage. The headline picture of the photo album (at the end of this piece) depicts me eating in the restaurant within, which was our main meal on that Thursday, after a fairly long and very enjoyable meander around the gallery.
But our traipsing around Paris really kicked off the next day. We started walking around Le Marais…
We had a good look at the Picasso Museum…
Then we headed north, taking a look at the Place de la République along the way.
After that, a long hike up to Montmartre, pursing the arty theme of our long weekend yet further.
We had a good long look at Sacré-Cœur once we got up there…
…and did a fair bit of wandering around those beautiful streets.
We were pretty tired by the end of all that and/but we found a lovely little rustic restaurant in that Montmartre district where we had a simple (by Parisian standards) but most enjoyable prix fixes meal, after which we staggered home…perhaps with some help from the Paris Metro.
On the Saturday I think we started with a look at Saint-Chappelle…
…and Notre-Dame (see headline photo)…
…followed by the Rodin House.
We did a fair bit of walking around the Right Bank of Central Paris that day, ending up at a rather charming little rotisserie restaurant near the river where we had a memorable meal of roast duck with pomme purée and vegetables.
The next day the weather was not so special, but we had planned a bit more of an indoor day. We did The Louvre…
…and the Musée de l’Orangerie
I think we might have (foolishly) walked the Champs-Élysées to the Arc de Triomphe, as I do remember getting wet at one point, after which we decided to use the Metro a bit more.
We went on to Montparnasse, where we hung out a Lilas Cafe for a while, fancying ourselves as Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir.
On the Monday, our train wasn’t until late afternoon, so we took advantage of the better weather looking around the environs of the hotel – in particular the beautiful Jardin du Luxembourg.
According to Janie’s diary, we went to Momos (Japanese Restaurant in North Ealing) for dinner when we got home and played tennis in Lammas Park on the Tuesday morning. Janie worked in the afternoon, I went back to my flat and sorted out my life ahead of a busy few days.
We didn’t take all that many pictures in Paris – fewer than forty – all of which can be seen through this link or below, acting as a sort-of photo journal of the trip. Except the pictures are in a bonkers sequence, perhaps born of a shuffled pack of prints.
