Paris
Trip Start
May 01, 2008
1
13
43
Trip End
Jun 24, 2009
Where I stayed
Hotel Balladins Epinay-les-Bains
Paris,
France
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
We bought a few souvenirs for the grandchildren and also wandered near the Louvre and past Les Halles to St.Denis and its sex shops and eventually took the metro over to St Michel and had another wander on the left bank, then found the Cluny Museum (of medieval art where the Lady and the unicorn is, but it was closed (Tuesday) By this time (after about 4 hours walking) my foot was really sore and legs aching and we wandered into St Severin Church and there was a wonderful acapella choir singing
railway station at Epinay
. They were a group called "The Capella of Calvin College" from Grand Rapids, Michigan USA on a concert tour of Europe, under the conduction of Prof. Navarro from the Philippines and they were magnificent! We had arrived after the 2nd number and stayed until the end! Just the thing to rest tired legs in this beautiful Gothic ceilinged church with wonderful stained glass windows all around! After that we discovered just outside that street (Rue St Severin) has heaps of good cheap restaurants and we had a 3 course meal for 10 euros at Fragrant Delice. All in all a really good day (except when we lost each other at the Eiffel Tower, but that is another story!)June 9
It has taken quite a while for the next edition as we have been staying with friends who have looked after us immensely well and taken us to all sorts of places, so not a lot of time for letter writing.
We didn't enjoy Paris as much as we had last time. It probably had a lot to do with where we stayed, but we felt it had somehow got grottier, with graffiti that we hadn't noticed last time and whole areas of one nationality or another not blending in with the locals but setting up a little Turkey, or Morocco or West Africa in their area with groups of young men hanging around in groups on street corners not appearing to do anything constructive!
Epinay les Bains
! However we benefited on the last night as we were staying near the airport in a very Turkish area, and had the best, cheapest meal we have had at a restaurant. We decided to stick to the country areas in future! However the trains were marvelous- clean, frequent and reasonably priced, making it far more economic to stay on the outskirts and train into the centre rather than try in vain to find parking in the city. Most of the inner city hotels did not offer parking, and were far more expensive than we had been paying for charming places in the country.On the last night we had booked in Tremblay-en-France at a Comfort Inn as we thought it would be easier to get to the airport the next day; however this was possibly the worst accommodation of the whole stay. We would have been much better staying where we were at Epinay as the Balladin Hotel was new and the room had a kitchenette, free internet, was a short walk from the train and was quite cheap.
Our last day in France was spent mostly at the enormous Palais de Versailles. I won't make too many comments here except to say that the gardens were rather disappointing, but can be visited for free without going through the chateau. If you are looking for wonderful gardens, go to Villandry or Chaumont sur Loire and leave Versailles to the millions of tour groups that always throng there.
