We never exactly made plans per se about travelling in Europe; it was more an idea of which countries we wouldn’t visti – France and other ‘western’ European countries were toward the top of that list. This was mainly becuause we’d travelled there previously and also due to the high cost of travel/living in this part of Europe.  However, sometimes the best thing about making a plan is changing it! Without being locked into a pre-booked flight itinerary we have the freedom of making it up as we went along and buying tickets on the cheaper low cost carriers.  After our wonderful time in Cambodia with Lara we thought it would be nice to see her again in her own environment, and sometimes it is more about the people you meet rather than the places you go.  It didn’t hurt that girls had always wanted to see the Eiffel Tower though – so it was off to Paris albeit for a very short 6 days.

I had visited Paris many times when I lived in the UK, and Dave and I had last visited together in 1999. It wasn’t until that visit with my future husband that I finally ‘got’ Paris – obviously a bit lacking in the romance department (Dave holds the cards there) and thus it took me a few visits to really feel the ‘city of love’. So it seemed appropriate that we would also celebrate our 10^th wedding anniversary here.

We arrived on time into Charles de Gaulle and caught the regional train (RER B) to Marais in the 4^th arrondisement of Paris (5 minutes walk from Notre-Dame).

Some excitement was injected to our ride on train when an attempted bag snatch was foiled. David noticed and takes up the story: I had noticed a shady looking character board our carriage and I thought it odd that he would board at the airport station with no baggage. Our family had settled into four seats and directly across the aisle was a woman travelling alone. She sat in the window seat with her luggage around her. After a few stops, the shady character disembarked and stood outside the woman’s window, bending down and showing her something on his mobile phone. This was the signal for his partner in crime who moved in from the rear of the carriage, grabbed her handbag from the seat beside her while she was watching the guy outside, and quickly exited the train through the rear doors. We hadn’t noticed the second guy, but there were two younger women behind us who saw the whole thing and raised the alarm. As soon as the two thieves realised they’d been spotted, they dropped the bag and headed for the station exit. It all happened in a matter of seconds – the time it takes for any metro train to stop at a station and the doors to open and close. An opportunity to re-iterate the ‘safely talk’ to the girls!  After this we noticed signs in just about every public place alluding to the presence of thieves.

There was no escaping the cold, and temperatures in Paris during our visit were typically 0-5°C. We had received a last minute email from the owner of the apartment we had booked to advise that the heating was not working there and she had made alternative arrangements for our accommodation close by.

The studio apartment was a good location but very, very small; the kitchen was only large enough for one person to stand in (this is not an exaggeration), and the tiny dining room was also the lounge and the girl’s bedroom and only big enough to be one of those things at a time! Coincidently it literally around the corner from the hotel where we had stayed when we came to Paris 14 years ago.

The city of Paris has a wonderful feel to it and a real energy.  The buildings are beautiful and history abounds. Our visit coincided with the 850^th anniversary of Notre Dame Cathedral and as we were so close, we visited again and signed the commemorative book.

Our first day out we spent the whole day just walking- from our apartment along the banks of the Seine – watching life on the Seine (and some police divers in action) and stopping at a few of the little stalls along the way, although most were closed perhaps due to it being so cold!

We made a stop at the Pont des Arts (Art Bridge) weighed down with ‘love locks’ of every size – tokins of love left by people all over the world.

We placed our very own padlock with ‘Sally & David’ scratched on one side as a declaration of our love (Happy 10^th wedding anniversary!)

DIPS was written on the other side –and the girls said next time they come to Paris they will come back to see if they can find it – I hadn’t the heart to tell them it would be long gone by then. But I loved the fact that they knew one day they would come back here! That’s my girls!

We continued on foot to spend several hours  at the wonderful Musée d’Orsay  gallery that houses many of the famous originals by artists such as Picasso, Renoir, and my favourite: Monet. So much to see and take in ….

We walked as far as the Pont Alexandre III, the arch bridge considered the most opulently decorated in Paris; catching our first glimpse of the Eiffel Tower before continuing the the southern end of the Champs-Élysées and taking the metro home. Phew.