Paris Saturday 13th of May 2023

Coffee and Croissants

First thing, yeah no t-shirts!! I put on a colourful shirt from Rotterdam and headed off towards "Le Toucan" and ordered two café au lait and croissants. This reminded me of my Balkan trip in 2019 where I used to order the same every day. I still needed to find t-shirts and I was already sweating and I still couldn't find a suitable shopping our area, I did however find a nice wine shop that I would return to. The same street was full of very nice grocery shops that remind me of the Turkish owned shops in Rotterdam.

We went to get the metro just in time for some Breton music with two groups of musicians just in front of the metro station. Today's plan was to visit the Eiffel Tower, The Arc de Triomph and the Château de Bagatelle ending with the Yugoslav monument.

The Eiffel Tower

Travelling by metro in Paris means changing trains and walking through endless tunnels with white tiles, up steps, down steps, left, and then right. The metro was packed with tourists heading to Bir Hakeim on their wauy to see the famous tower. We ending up befriending a family from Montréal, Canada and I continued to speak French. As we approached our stop the tower popped in and out of view over the magnificent buildings.

Arc de Triomph

We got out and crossed over to take some pictures of the tower, then reentered to the metro to travel to the Arc de Triomph. At the station I saw a tourist shop selling t-shirts and got talking to a Croatian family from Šibenik who wanted to know why I spoke their language. I ended up buying 3 touristy t-shirts. We exited and took a few pictures of the Arc and went for a wander around the Champs Elysées. My first time here was 41 years ago with my school in 1982, which got me thinking that this was also 42 years after Hitler marched down the same spot.

La Défense

We bought postcards and travelled towards the Neuilly Bridge. At this stage I was completely sweaty, but we did get treated to a wonderful view of La Défense. We continued towards Bagatelle and surreptitiously found a post office where we quickly wrote and sent some postcards.

Peacock

We entered the park and could already hear the peacocks going "argh, argh, argh" . The entrance to see the castle was only 2 euro 50, although "castle" in any language was a bit of an exaggeration. The entrance to the house was adorned with naked statues and devils heads. The flowers were also nice, but we still couldn't locate the peacocks who were still screaming. We walked bit further and found several peacocks, they get my first prize as the drama queen bird. I tried to film one but he was too shy. A little bit further there was another peacock with feathers extended and and shaking his stuff. As we were leaving the park Zora called as we were trying to find the Yugoslavian monument, as if she knew!

The Yugoslavian Monument

A little but further through forest, crossing dangerous roads and seeing lots of suspicious men lurking around we found the Spomenik, neglected and forgotten. Also a reminder of a land that no longer exists - Zemlja Koje Nema Više.

Next we wanted to sit and drink something but found the places rather expensive, so we continued on our way. We eventually found a Breton place where I ordered special cider and Stanislav had water. We finished up and headed back to the hotel picking up more wine and t/shirts on the way.

Meal at "Le Toucan"

Later we decided to have a nice meal at "Le Toucan". We had pastis to start with and a small carafe of Bordeaux wine. For start I had poached eggs in Bleu D'Avergne cheese. Stanislav had eggs mayonaise. For mains, I had a mushroom omelette served with gorgeous sautéed potatoes. Stanislav had a stunt steak. We also had an endless supply of bread. Bread, yes bread as the locals seem to always have a baguette stuck under their arm, eating half of the bread on the way home! No dessert for me, but Stanislav had a fruit salad.

Onwards towards "La Boîte" where we had little interest in watching the Eurovision. A Mongolian intellectual came over and started chatting to us. We returned to the hotel, ignoring the song contest and going to bed.

In a word #delicious

#france #paris