Eiffel tower

Our whirlwind tour continues in Paris, where Steven caught up with Judy and the dance group, and I caught up with friends and colleagues. Paris is a wonderful city to visit. Alas, at the time of our visit a lot of other people also thought Paris was a wonderful place to vist just at that time – something to do with euro-football finals being in Paris. The hotels were in short supply and super expensive, and the whole place was rather busy, and some of the football fans were rather noisy.

One of the features of Paris is the lack of/expensive parking (the parking garage near the hotel charges ~36€ per day. But I found that there was free on-street parking near the Paris zoo, only about 5-6 km from our hotel. We dumped our bags at the hotel and drove out. We had not counted on it taking an hour to drive that 5-6 km, but such is the congestion on Paris streets. Once we had parked, and confirmed with 3 different, non-English-speaking locals (by aid of mime and my broken French and their valiant attempts with English) that this location was indeed free parking (the parking signs were rather confusing) we locked up and walked back along the Seine towards the centre of town and our hotel.

River barges on the Seine

The walk was interesting. We got to see a section of the Seine that was more industrial, with barges full of building materials and so on – it gave us a different perspective on the place compared to the usual tourist areas, but at 32C or more and high humidity, we were rather whacked by the time we got back.

Sacre Coeur

We managed to pack in our federal election votes at the Australian Embassy, and a lot of sights including  the environs of the Eiffel tower, Arc de Triomphe, Montmartre, Sacre Coeur, the Louvre … etc. There is always lots to see and do. And eat … we sampled some wonderful French cuisine (including a few

Escargot

decadent visits to the local patisseries). One aspect stood out relative to visits from some years ago. It became somewhat tedious to go through security check queues at every venue. Often you had to go through security before you could even get tickets to enter. Security police with high powered weapons were a common sight on the streets. But overall, I would rather have the extra security than the potential alternative.

Check out a gallery of photos at https://goo.gl/photos/HL7i5cyDHEgFzJB88

As for the free parking saga … yes, there was a hidden catch. We were heading out of town on Monday morning so decided to collect the car on Sunday afternoon and park it close the the hotel overnight (street parking in the city centre is free on Sundays until 9 am Monday, which worked fine for our plans). So we headed out (by train to the nearest station – much easier than walking). The car was fine. No fines attached. But there was a catch. It seems that the road we parked on becomes a no-car area closed off by boom gates on Sundays. Fortunately there was a policeman near the gates who kindly let us out. 🙂