First full day in Paris

Today was our first full day in Paris, and it was also 14 July - Bastille Day. We had a sleep-in and then went down for the breakfast that was included in the price of our room. It was a lovely continental breakfast with fresh fruit salad, juice, pureed fruit, cold meats and two varieties of cheese. Coffee was supplied with hot milk for you to add.

I knew there was a big parade due to leave from the Arc de Triomphe, and thought it started at 9 am. At that time we saw people moving as if it was about to start, so David and I dashed out, leaving Jan and Steve to finish, and we headed as far as we could towards the Champs Élysée. There were army tanks and vehicles parked on our street and around the Arc. A bit further on we came across several groups of horse guardsmen, but we could get no further, and the start looked imminent. So we waited, and waited... and waited... along with the crowd. In the end David gave up and headed back to the hotel. I saw the flyover about 2 hours later (see my MobileMe Gallery), and the tanks start out down the Champs Élysée from below the Arc de Triomphe. After that I headed back to the hotel, and found David enjoying a perfect view of the whole event on TV!

Jan and Steve said that they had headed out and managed to get a little further down the Champs than me but in a terrible crush of people that they said was scary. It seems that David had the best view of us all!

The day was very mild, partly cloudy, but warm when the sun came out. Next we decided to head over to the Eiffel Tower, and catch a #69 bus across to the Notre-Dame, following a tour in our Rick Steve guide book.

We walked... and walked... and walked! By about 3pm we were feeling the heat, and still hadn't quite found the street where the bus left from, so it was time for a late lunch and lots of liquid refreshment. Omelettes or sandwiches, and lemonade. Then off we went again. We headed for the Champs de Mars by the Eiffel Tower, only to find the bus stop with a sign saying it was not operating today because of the holiday!

So, we traipsed to the nearest RER rail station and made our way to the Isle de la Cite, an island in the Seine. We took one look at the Notre Dame queue and decided to head to Sainte Chapelle first. This was amazing.

We thought it was interesting on the lower floor, but then headed up the stairs to the main floor and saw the amazing stained glass windows. To think this was built between 1242 and 1248 to house what they thought was Christ's Crown of Thorns!

Then back to Notre-Dame where the queue had shortened a little and was moving rapidly. This was a more 'dark' place, but very imposing in its own way. It was very big! We had a look through and then went out for some photos of the gargoyles and other decorations.

By then I was desperate to get off my feet, and have something to drink. Well, talk about charging like a wounded bull, you can see the docket and work it out for yourselves!


After that break we went over to see Point Zero, in front of Notre-Dame. This is a spot which represents the middle of France, and from where all distances are measured. After waiting.... and waiting... and waiting... for a group of tourists to move off... They were initially oblivious to the spot that they were standing on, then we had to wait while they each decided to take photos of it! After waiting politely while a couple of them mucked around, Steve and I decided to push in and get our own photos! Sheesh!

Next we headed to the Metro and caught the train all the way back up the Champs Elysee. We got off at the Arc de Triomphe and had a bit of a walk around that (we'll go up it later in the week) then headed back to our hotel by about 8 pm. We were intending to step out and watch the fireworks being let off on the Eiffel Tower, but we were all too knackered - we couldn't even contemplate having something for dinner. So, now I write this post, listening to the booming of the fireworks that started at 11 pm.

Christchurch to Paris - 12/13 July

I felt a little sad as we left Christchurch, almost as if we were abandoning our much loved, quake-ridden city. We all thought there was a shake as we were about to step on the plane, but it was just the movement of the people on the air bridge.

My gluten free meal on the way to Sydney was a shocker (also dairy free, as well as being dry and tasteless). We had a couple of hours to wait after arriving in Sydney so sat and built up our fluid intake for the journey; Jan and I played a few hands of Bridge on my iPad and walked around to keep moving while we could. We felt a bit spooked a few times because the floor kept moving as if there were small earthquakes but Steve gave us his engineer's opinion that it was all normal.

The leg from Sydney to Dubai was 14 and a half hours, and sadly my dinner meal was the same as on the previous flight, although this time there was a decent dollop of sauce and it wasn't so dry. I'm relieved to report that breakfast on the plane was very nice scrambled eggs, but they had given me Vegemite to spread on the bread - NOT gluten free - sigh!

We arrived at Dubai Airport at ten to 2 on Tuesday afternoon NZ time. I headed straight for the MacDonalds for some fries... It was first thing in the morning there, so I've had the rare treat of McDonalds for breakfast.

The 7 hour journey from Dubai to Paris was a doddle after the previous flight. Jan and I enjoyed watching some video clips on my iPad by Rick Steves, about some of the places we will be visiting. And David and I got hooked on the Angry Birds game. Steve and I bought 4 day Museum Passes at Paris Airport, before getting a taxi to the Hotel Cecilia and squeezing into the tiny elevator two at a time to find our rooms on the first floor, overlooking the street.

The hotel is quite quaint and although the room is basic and small, it's good enough, and way better than our hotel in Venice had been. After showers and a quick email check using the hotel's free wifi, we went for a walk along the top end of the Champs Élysée. The Arc de Triomphe is probably only 200 metres away from our hotel and it's bigger than I imagined. We'll have a proper look later.











On our first evening, still feeling like we were on Kiwi time (it was after 3 in the morning your time) we just felt like dawdling. The crowds were bad so we ended up diverting down a side street and finding somewhere for a cool drink and then had a dinner. I had the first of what will probably be many Caesar Salads sans gluten - I used a GF language card.

We were all knackered and finally headed to bed around 6 am NZ time, 8 pm in Paris. We were out like a light, but rudely awoken by a drunk woman laughing and shouting loudly all the way down the street outside at 2:00 am. Still, we both had a good catchup on our sleep.

Footnote for Michelle, Judy and my other gluten free friends. You'll be interested to know that I sure hope the Emirates food improves. Thought it was great 2 years ago but my meal out of Christchurch was a piece of very dry fish with a tbsp of dried up tomato sauce on top - it added no flavour - and I'm not exaggerating. Gordon Ramsay would not have been impressed, and it sure wouldn't get the Emirates chefs into the Master Chef competition! Boiled potatoes and beans, some lettuce, a piece of tomato and cucumber - no dressing. 2 slices of very dry GF bread. Everything dry. The wee ginger/apple cake was 'ok'. David had a lovely fish meal and gave me the cheese he had with his crackers. He even had a chocolate with his meal - bah! The problem, I think, is they're making gluten free meals dairy free as well and combining their allergy provisions and putting no imagination into it, which means I'll be losing weight on these flights, so I guess the food cloud has a silver lining! You wouldn't like it though, Andrew. The meal out of Sydney was the same one, but marginally better cooked. But things improved. The breakfast was lovely scrambled eggs, mushrooms, tomato but still dairy free. The GF breakfast and lunch out of Dubai was excellent - salads with variety and flavour, and a casserole with a lovely sauce. A fabulous fresh fruit jelly for dessert. The bread was a more moist buckwheat variety. And I even had a chocolate!

2011 Travel Itinerary

Click on the image above, to read the itinerary. Double-click to zoom in, click the corner of the page to turn to the next page. Or download as a pdf.