Jeudi - dans la cuisine

Shopping at Printemps and pick up Philip’s jacket (which has been having alterations).

Lunch at Pierre Gagnaire on the 8eme. When we ask the maitre’d to take a photo of us; he offers to take our photo in the kitchen. He takes our photo with the chef in the kitchen which we are surprised to see is very small (compared to the size of the restaurant) with at least 15 people involved in the food preparation.. We cruise the shops in Ave George V and Ave Montaigne before returning home. When Kwan takes off her shoes, the tops of her feet has turned black (she did not have stocking or socks for the first time) and realize how polluted the streets are. In the evening, Kwan has an infection in her eyes.

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Mercredi - au revoir Winnie

Kwan and Winnie continue guide book photographic emulation. Eiffel Tower from in front of Champs de Mars, under the Eiffel Tower, across the Seine, on top of the walking bridge, Bridge Alexandre III, and photos of Grand Palais, Petit Palais, more of Place de la Concorde, Tuileries Garden, The Lourve and Palais Royal.

Lunch at Maceo in the 1st. We return home at 3.30 pm and Winnie prepares for departure at 5 pm. Quiet evening with Philip and Kwan organizing the next week’s schedule.

Dinner a la Maison.

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Mardi Vingt Deux

More shopping for Kwan and Winnie. Winnie goes on buying spree. They do guide book photos of Place de la Concorde, Opera House, Champs-Elysee, Arc de Triomphe.

In the meantime, Philip deals with some daily issues, going to the bank and post office before heading off to the 5th to check out some neighbourhoods of potential apartments. Has lunch at L'espandon Bleu in the 6th which he gives the thumbs up to. Apres dejeuner he explores the southern section of the 4eme and the final steps of the Marais walking tour which had not been completed the week before.

Dinner at the local Pasco restaurant for Winnie’s last night/farewell dinner.

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Lundi Lafayette

Kwan and Winnie go shopping. Firstly, they go to Louis Vuitton on Champs-Elysees, then the 1st arr., the heart of high fashion. Winnie has her eyes on Gucci and Kwan wants everything. A typical “Shop Till You Drop” and finish off at Galleries Lafayette totally exhausted and go home by 6.30 pm.

In the meantime, Philip does long walk to check out areas of other apartments that our agent has on her books. Walks to the 16th to print out some documents at the internet cafe; upto Arc de Triomphe through the 8th to Boulevard Haussmann and has lunch at wine bar Ma Borgone. After lunch does some further exploring in the Marais.

Dinner a la maision.


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The rain in Reims

We get up really early to reach Gare d’Est for the SNCF train to Reims, a famous Champagne town. The weather is really miserable, cold and heavy rain.

We reach the station well ahead of time only to find there is a strike in Reims and trains have been delayed and a bit of a chaos in the station. The train is 10 minutes late and we reach Reims after 2 hours at 11.30 am. We visit the Notre-Dame Cathedral and town square and lunch nearby. The town is very quiet due to, maybe, the weather, the strike or it's Sunday. We take a taxi to Pommery Champagne House for a tour to the caves 30 metres down which remains 10 C and 80-90% humidity and darkness to preserve the champagne bottles. Very interesting. We enjoy our champagne tasting after walking up 115 steps from the cave to the surface. We walk back to the station at 4.30 pm passing Taittinger and Piper-Heidsieck houses. It is a pity we are out of time and cannot goto the memorial where Germany officially surrendered to the Americans at the WWII.

Our train is scheduled at 5.19 pm. We arrive at 5 pm to find mayhem in the station with passengers flocking to different carriages to try to find a seat. Just when we think we will have to stand 2 hours back to Paris when suddenly 3 seats are available right in front of us. Lucky break, other passengers resort to sitting in the aisles.

We return to Gare d’Est at 7.15 pm and follow the crowds to the metro and change 3 trains to have dinner at a Chinese restaurant which specializes in Szechuen dishes, Aux Delices de Szechuen. We order all the typical Szechuenese cuisine and although a little skeptical we are delighted to taste the genuine flavour and we all totally enjoy our Chinese cuisine. Comfort food for the ladies.

We walk past Les Invalides and home by 9.30 pm.

A tale of two churches

Our firend Winnie who is staying with us is experiencing Europe for the first time. She has done a 10 day Trafalgar tour covering parts of Italy, Switzerand and France. Her tour finished in Paris which included visits to the Eiffel Tour, the Lourve, river cruise, Versailles and a bus tour of the city. Kwan informs me that she wants to go to Sacre Coeur - this is the one thing she really wants to do, apart from Shopping.


We take a metro to Pigalle station on the 17th arr. and follow the Frommer’s walking guide. We walk past Bateau-Lavoir (Boat Washhouse) where Picasso lived between 1904-12); Espace Dali Montmartre, a Salvadori Dali museum and Place du Tertre, the old town square where artists abound the area.

Today coincides with the Fete du Perigord (food and produce from the Perigod region) and there are stalls all around Sacre-Coeur selling sausages, olive oil, fresh strawberries and pastries etc around the region of France. The precinct is absolutely packed. We have never seen crowds like this here.We enter Sacre Coeur to hear the nuns singing the Office at midday (along with thousands of other tourists) and Winnie takes a picture but when Philip tries the same, he is ushered out of the church along with other people who try to do the same. This is a first for Philip. All his life people have been trying to get him into church and now they are throwing him out. This must be the only church in Paris that does not permit photography. We realize later that there are signs outside the church indicating photographs forbidden, however, the crowds entering obscure them.

We proceed to walk down the hill and see where van Gogh lived in 1886 at 54 rue Lepic. We lunch at a nearby brasserie.

We pass the famous Cimetiere de Montmartre where Degas, Truffaut and Nijinksy etc were buried; Moulin Rouge with the famous windmill and Boulevard de Clichy, the sleazy area with sex joints before heading back to Pigalle station where Edith Piaf used to sing in nearby alleyways during the period of WWII.

It turns out that Sacre Coeur is not the church Winnie wanted to see and after some discussion we work out it is Notre Dame. So we catch the Metro to Ile de Cité. Similarly packed with people as there is a Féte du Pain on in the forecourt. Notre Dame has become the tourist centre of Paris and is always very busy these days. We visit the Cathedral with no problems with the photography.

Dinner at La Billebaude (not far from home) which is recommended by Philip’s barber (a rich source of information as we all know). A small bistro but the food is really delicious.


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Rear Window

See rear window

Nous Faisons le Pont

Got up 7.30 am and metro to La Defense to pick up Winnie from Sofitel Hotel. We were going to take the metro home but decide there are too many stairs in the metro and the hotel is much further away than expected. We take a taxi and drive via Champs-Elysees home.

Philip goes to our regular Boulanger to get baguettes and croissant. The door is closed and the sign reads "Nous faisons le Pont". The means We have taken a bridge, which in France where there is a day between the public holiday and the week-end they take the intervening day off also - which is called a bridge - Le Pont. There seems to be a public holiday every week of May so together with les ponts no one does much work in May.

We lunch at Lasserre at Ave Franklin D. Rosevelt in the 8th - very swank. A very traditional French avant garde décor with an opening roof to the sunshine. Food is fabulous and we ladies receive a mini porcelain pot as souvenir from the restaurant.

We promenade at the most prestigious street in Paris nearby, Avenue Montaigne with high iron rod and glass doors opening to stores like Nina Rica, Christian Dior, Chanel and Gucci. Surprisingly and to Philip's relief the ladies make no purchases.

Dinner at home with simple vegetarian dishes.

Féte et pluie

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We strike the quinella today. It's a holiday in France and it's rainning.


We leave early to go to Drouot, famous Parisian Auction Houses in the 9th recommended by our French friends Jacques and Anne. We forget that today is a public holiday and find ourselves in empty streets with all businesses, and the vast majority shops, closed for the Féte. The sky opens and it rains, quite heavily, which further dampens our mood. We walk around the area with most shops closed except for eateries. We stop at the Opera House but they do not have guided tours today. Look around rue des Petits Champs and rue Sainte-Anne where there are lots of Japanese ramen shops. Lunch at 12.30 pm at nearby Drouant Restaurant.

Shops start to open in the afternoon and we look at a stationery shop and return home around 4 pm. We watch a movie (or shall we say Kwan watches and Philip rests his eyes) - "Le Dernier Metro" with Catherine Deneuve and Gerard Depardieu. We take it easy for the rest of the day as we anticipate greeting our next guest tomorrow and packed schedule of 5 days tour guide.

Dinner a la maison - oignon omlette and courgettes.

Mercredi Marais

Early start from Place de la Bastille armed with Frommer’s Walking Guide of the Marais.
Then Place des Vosges and Musee Carnavalet. A 16th century mansion now devoted to the history of Paris and the French Revolution. This is a fantastic museum for anyone interested in French history, as Philip is; best of all it is free admission.

Lunch at Bofinger, a historic bistro like Le Grand Colbert and La Couple.

We continue our walk and enter Musee Picasso with a special exhibition of Carmen, which draws on the theory that Picasso was intrigued or obsessed by the character from the Opera of the same name during his early years and then again in the 1950s. Picasso is such a complex and interesting character and a most prolific painter. We have seen the Picasso Musee in Antibes many times but this exceeds it many times. Someone like him could never have lived and expressed his creativity in Australia at the time he lived. Philip is obviously very impressed because he goes crazy in the souvenir shop.

We continue our Guided Walk and head to Yvon Lambert galleries with latest avant-garde art by local artists. This area is full of many private galleries - mostly modern. One could wander here and gallery hop for days. We see historic buildings Hotel de Rohan and Hotel des Ambassadeurs de Hollande, neither of which are open to the public. We re-visit Rue des Rosiers, the Jewish area.

Out of time to complete our walk, which must happen on another day, we return home at 7 pm and stir fried snow peas with garlic for dinner.

Around the Champs

We head out late morning and explore the back streets and arcades behind Avenue Champs-Elysees before arriving at the Taillevent Restaurant to have lunch with Christine Woodruff.

Apres dejeuner we continue our leisure walk on Champs ‘Elysees and check out the Monoprix store which is like a Target or K-Mart. Kwan buys some local products like dried cepes (a type of mushroom) and canned flageolets beans.

It is a routine that we have a big lunch and a simple vegetable dish in the evening. We are madly researching and to arrange our time so that we can do as much as we can for the last 2 weeks.

Lundi Latin Quarter

Very cool morning and rain in the late afternoon.

We head out late morning to the 5th arr. Lunch at Ze Kitchen Gallerie at rue des Grande Augustins. This street has quite a few interesting restaurants, bistros & brasseries.

We commence our Frommer’s Walking Tour of the Latin Quarter from Place St Michel in the 5eme, the area has become very touristy and lots of Greek and Moroccan restaurants around. We then look at St Severin Church built from 1230 with gargoyles, birds of prey and reptilian monsters projecting from its roof.

We then visit Musee de Cluny to see the famous The Lady and the Unicorn tapestries. The Sorbonne, which according to Frommer can be visited has security on all doors permiting only student entry - it could be the war on terrorist or maybe just precautions after the elections. Around the next corner and then the Pantheon.

The Pantheon is the resting place of a lot of distinguished figures including Victor Hugo, Rousseau, Voltaire and Madame Curie. We walk up 206 steps to the top of the Dome and have another perspective view of the city Paris. In the interior centre of the building is Le Pendule de Foucault (The Pendulum of Foucault) ……To quote Wikipedia "In 1851 it was well known that Earth rotated: observational evidence included Earth's measured polar flattening and equatorial bulge. However, Foucault's pendulum was the first dynamical proof of the rotation in an easy-to-see experiment, and it created a sensation in both the learned and everyday worlds." The Pendulum has been reinstalled here.


The Pantheon certainly exceed these jaded tourists expectations. Recommend.

We head home at 6 pm and vegetarian fried rice for dinner. Kwan tries to tidy the apartment while Philip is working hard for the weekend getway.

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Dimanche - Catch up with Woodruffs

Breakfast at 9.30 am with scrambled eggs by Hans (German precision). Hans and Wali decide to visit Napoleon’s Tomb at Les Invalides nearby by themselves. We meet up with John and Christine Woodruff who just return from Morocco at 12.15 pm for lunch at Au Dernier Metro.

We have a light snack with Hans and Wali at home before saying goodbye to them at 3.30 pm.

We have a very lazy afternoon and simple vegetable for dinner.

Samedi - Luxembourg

Breakfast at 9 am with fried eggs by Hans. We take autobus 82 to Jardin du Luxembourg. Lovely garden with lots of joggers and groups practising Tai Chi. We go to the Lalique jewellery exhibition in Musee du Luxembourg. Exquisite jewelry designs by Rene Lalique whose name is now more renowed for decorating vases etc. Highly recommended.

We again split with our friends by 1 pm. We walk to Rue de Rennes and have lunch at Le Bologne near Le Bon Marche. A very casual eatery with an Italian mama (we suspect) and family waiting on the tables.

We then decide to walk home and check around the area for good Chinese restaurants in the area for our visitor, Winnie, next week.

Hans and Wali have gone to Notre Dame and Il St Louis to try the famous Berthillon ice cream. Dinner at Le Fontaine du Mars in the 7eme. We then walk to Eiffel Tower and cross the Seine and watch the 10 pm glitter show on the bridge. We take a metro from Place de la Concorde and finish the evening with Hans’ Viennese chocolates.

Vendredi Sacre Coeur

Breakfast at 9.30 am with scrambled eggs prepared by Hans, followed by butter and cheeses with baguette fresh from the boulangerie and fresh fruits to finish. A typical breakfast for our Austrian and German friends on the weekends.

We take an autobus 80 to Monmartre. Already busy by late morning even the weather has turned quite cool and windy. We browse around the artists’ quarter and walk into Sacre Coeur at 12.15 pm and realize they are just finishing a quick mass with nuns singing and it is absolutely beautiful. We decide we will return early next week with our other friend, Winnie to attend the midday service.

We walk down the hill and split with our friends. We take a metro to the 6th arr and have lunch at Le Procope, reputedly the oldest cafe (today more of a Bistro) in Paris. We then proceed to walk around the area before heading home by 4.30 pm. Hans and Wali return at 6. They have gone to Champs ‘Elysees and the department stores, Lafayette and Printemps. Dinner at Café Constant.

marche en parc avec Hans et Wali

Kwan has her hair done to anticipate receiving our Viennese friends (Hans and Wali) late this morning. They arrive at 12.30 and we go to the local bistro, The Royal, for lunch.

We proceed to walk to Champ du Mars and Eiffel Towers, along the River Seine, cross the Pont Alexandre III to the Lourve and the Tulleries Garden. We rest in the park watching the passer-bys before taking a metro home at 5.30 pm.

We have white asparagus with Wali’s home made dressing, prociutto, 3 cheeses and raspberrie tiramisu from Rue Cler market for dinner. With chocolates from Le Maison du Chocolate to close the evening at 10.30 pm.

Mercredi - l'arc et le 16ème

Lazy morning and book lunch at La Table de Joel Robuchon on the 16th. Great value E55 includes 4 course + ½ bottle of wine + café. Since Kwan doesn’t drink, Philip gets to drink the whole bottle. Funny thing is, French waiters tend not to bottoms up. You have to be quick to catch them before they take your bottle away with at least ¾ of glass of wine left. You should have seen Philip’s face the first time the waiter did that. Kwan was expecting an international incident.

Stroll along Avenue Victor Hugo with lots of classic French designer boutiques. Philip informs that the 16th arrondisement is like Paddington or Double Bay, thus the chic shops. However, Kwan is too filled with lunch that she has no desire for shopping - no doubt a clever plot from Philip.

We walk to Arc de Triomphe and down the Champs Elysee.

Back home we prepare for our Viennese guests Hans & Wali who arrive tomorrow.

Simple dinner with BBQ pork and roast pork and veges.

Nourriture française

More unpacking and clean the email trays. Lunch at the long overdue local L’Ami Jean. We walk past a few times and it is always packed and we can never just walk in without booking. Food is absolutely delicious. We have the set menu (of course). Philip claims this is the best entrée he has ever tasted - grilled fish meuille feuille. Main course we share a pork casoulet - sumptuous. Kwan has one of the best rhubarb dessert she has tasted. She vows not to have dessert again (sounds familiar?).

We realise how much we missed the French fare over the last 2 weeks...... What will we do in Sidenee?

We are so satisfied that we have a lazy afternoon sorting paperwork and email etc. We don’t feel hungry until 9.30 pm when Kwan makes some snow peas in oyster sauce - c'est tout.

Lundi paresseux

Laundry and unpacking in the morning. Lunch at Chinatown 13eme - a steaming Vietnamese Beef Noodle Soup. Cheap and fast and good. Asian food shopping.

More food shopping at Le Bon Marche at 6eme. Dinner at local restaurant, Florimond. Very good service and food is great. We chat with the solo diner next table who is an American from near Washington DC. Kwan can’t resist the valued packed 3-course set menu and she loves the dessert. She vows she will never have dessert again.

Paris encore

Another beautiful sunny day in Kobenhavn. At midday we assemble at the palace for the changing of the guard. No sign of Mary. We visit Danish Museum of Art and Design then lunch at a garden café near Churchill Park.

Check out at 3.30 pm and head for the airport. Everything in the northern European runs efficiently. It only takes us 5 minutes to check in and get our fax paper quality boarding pass. Kwan reckons Copenhagen airport has the best departure terminal facilities. Lots of good quality shops and plenty of food outlets with ample seating and quality food.

We arrive at Paris airport at 8.15 pm only to find the weather has cooled down to about 15 C.

Our taxi driver kindly informs us that Sarkozy has become the new President of France and warns that there may be demonstration in town. We drive near the 16th and are met with floods of people approaching Place de la Concorde for the celebration. See C'est Capitalist for more details.

We pick up our keys from Anne in the 6eme and return to our Paris home. Quick meal at Café Rosillon, good food and friendly service but too many smokers for Kwan’s liking. Unpack till 1 am.