Birthday treat in Paris

If it hadn’t been for the fact that John had arranged an amazing trip to Paris, as a birthday treat for me, I would have been very sorry to leave our little spot of total luxury and escape at the Villeray. However, I was very excited to be going to Paris again after so many years. We’d chosen the Hotel Cambon, a small four star in a perfect location between the Rue de Rivoli and the Faubourg St Honore. With help from the sat nav we found our way into Paris and managed to unload the bags and get the car parked without causing too much trouble. After so many peaceful places it was amazing to suddenly encounter massive crowds. We’d decided to head to Paris via Giverney and pay a visit to Monet’s house and garden. It was another incredible day and the garden looked absolutely stunning with summer dahlias, gladioli and sublime autumn crocuses on the lawns. There were even some water lilies still flowering in the famous ponds. However, we had to queue (though not for long) to get in and fight our way through a great many people which just took the edge off the magic of the place. However, I was delighted to have seen it and in such amazing weather.
Paris was similarly heaving with people, predominantly Japanese tourists in great parties though a fairly large range of other nationalities as well. Still Paris full of people adds to the atmosphere and we enjoyed some huge long walks through the city, again in the most delightful sunny Indian summer. Galeries Lafayette was packed but John found a lovely birthday card and bought me some Chanel Cristalle as a present. We got to The Musee d’Orsay just after opening so the queue was negligible and it wasn’t too crowded. However, I was disappointed to fine that they were renovating the fifth floor galleries so the impressionists and post impressionists had had to be squashed into some downstairs temporary galleries. They are still fabulous paintings and it was lovely to see them again but it did lose some of its magic. There was very little Monet as they were starting a new Monet exhibition at another gallery, actually on the 22nd, so 53 of them had been moved! Still we prefer the Cezanne, Degas and Gauguin anyway. The queue for the Sainte Chappelle just looked too slow and too long – I had planned to take John to see the stained glass, which is amazing and I haven’t seen it for over 30 years but there was so much else to see and do I didn’t want to spend hours of my birthday queuing for something which doesn’t take long to look at!
We wandered off to look at Notre Dame, the Hotel de Ville and the Pompidou Centre before stopping for a fabulous and light birthday lunch at the Vaudeville brasserie in the Place de la Bourse – oysters and prawns for me, lobster for John, fresh raspberries and a bottle of champagne. It was brilliant.
The next day was pretty cloudy and the French were on a general strike. The streets did seem quieter but everything seemed to be much as normal. We walked up to Montmartre and admired the view from the steps of the Sacre Coeur, dodging the portrait painters and walked down to see the famous vines. Then we walked back through the streets of the real city, away from the tourist buses and found a little brasserie recommended by lonely planet for lunch. We enjoyed a typical French meal with a whole bottle of red wine since no-one had to drive but it did mean we spent the afternoon resting in our hotel and missed the demonstrations on the Champs Elysee! In the evening we stayed in and watched an American film dubbed into French which was quite a challenge but I think I managed the main twists of the plot once I’d got over John Travolta speaking French!