Paris – in January

Before taking the train to Avignon Sol, Leonie and I went to Paris to visit the Cleeves family. Rachel, Tim, Eli and Maya are friends from Victoria who are on a sabbatical year in Europe as well. They took us in for a week, sharing their charming little apartment in the 14. arrondissement generously with us. The kids were delighted seeing friends from home and so was I!

with Rachel, Eli and Maya in the gardens of Versailles

We did lots of fun and interesting stuff in this fascinating city:

It was a walking-marathon-week, starting with the climb of the Eiffel tower as far up as the stairs would let us. Maya and Leonie had to hold my hands so I wouldn’t fly off with vertigo.

Eiffel Tower

Maya and Eli each got a different day off school to spend with us. Wednesday school in France finishes early so the five of us explored the creepiest tourist attraction of Paris: The Catacombs. They were created at the end of the 18th century as an ossuary because the largest cemetery at the time was overcrowded  and had to be closed.

Underneath the houses and streets, even underneath the Metro system, you wander through a 200-mile network of old quarries with bones and skulls of 6 million, yes, 6 million, dead Parisians neatly stacked in caves and along tunnels. The children thought this was “cool”, which it was in the sense of interesting, unusual, and a bit freaky. I did feel compelled to remind them that this is a graveyard and that these remains, stacked into attractive patterns by workers, were once living people with joys and sorrows just like us.

G. missing Bill 

Along the banks of the Seine we came accross a large black board and a bucket of chalk.  Once we were done, the board wasn’t black anymore!

Other highlights of our visit were a falafel lunch at the Marais, the famous Jewish quarter of Paris; a morning browsing through textile at the Fabric District just down the hill from Sacre-Coeur with Maya and Rachel; the gardens of Versailles Palace, particularly Queen Antoinette’s Hamlet – and lots of fancy dinners cooked by Rachel & Tim with the freshest ingredients from nearby markets.

The variety of foods in Paris blew me away: The countless artful designer-patisseries where one macaroon costs 3 $, aesthetically pleasing bakeries at every corner, heaps of interesting looking and smelling cheeses in the market streets – and in your regular supermarket; seafood vendors with shimmering oysters, snails and clams, not to forget a whole street lined with crêperies!

Rachel et moi à Versailles

In Paris I finally found a place for us three to go to next: a place in Southern France where we could stay and practice French without the kids having to go to school. We found that peaceful place in Avignon. So on February 3 we said Goodbye to our friends and boarded the fast TGV train South.

on the TGV