Paris, toujours Paris!

First explorations

Here we are at the Hotel Mont Calm, on Avenue Félix Faure, a beautiful Parisian avenue with characteristic buildings and a wonderful fruit shop whose scent reaches all the way into the nearby Metro station. What I like is that it's not a distinctly touristy area, but a place where there are real Parisians, the ones who go to work, to school – here the schools are still open – to do their shopping… After dropping off our luggage in our lovely rooms, we go out to explore the neighborhood and I discover that our hotel borders an elementary school! Incredible, my destiny as a teacher follows me everywhere! A hundred meters further on there's even a crêche, a nursery school! After a quick stop at Montparnasse, we head to the Latin Quarter and take a little stroll along the Seine, rive gauche, among bouquinistes and tourists.

Since our last visit to the French capital, it seems to me that Parisians have become more sociable with us Italians: one lady even offered on her own to give us directions to reach a Metro station!

Marais and Notre Dame

After stuffing ourselves properly – they call this breakfast?! - we decide to go and discover the Marais district, which is in the area of the Hotel de Ville, Paris's City Hall. It's a truly distinctive area, a bit bohemian, with alleys, artisan workshops and lots of bakeries with all sorts of treats, just so we don't miss anything… I even found a bookshop where I blissfully lingered for quite a while! We dedicate the afternoon to Notre Dame: truly remarkable! Even if a bit dark and dusty compared to our sparkling churches. Dinner is in the Latin Quarter, where we discover it's full of Greek restaurants… huh? We take the bateau and head to the Tour Eiffel, all lit up and sparkling. The gardens are full of people, until well past midnight!

Eurodisney

Eurodisney… here we are! We certainly couldn't skip a day with Mickey and Co. right in the year of Disneyland Paris's 15th anniversary! I have to admit it's truly thrilling to navigate among High School Musical, Winnie the Pooh, Dalmatians, dragons and various monsters! And I regress to absolute infantile levels! The curiosity to see everything brings us to a state of tremendous exhaustion that gets swept away by a massive dose of shopping! Too bad it's cold and the weather is so Atlantic and so little Mediterranean! (we discovered that the best-selling item at Eurodisney is the rain poncho!)

Around the castles

Grey weather, for a change, but we rent a beautiful minivan and set off to discover the castles of the Loire. Just outside Paris we are immersed in beautiful countryside, interspersed with woods and forests, many of which were once hunting reserves of kings and various nobles. We caught glimpses of several castles in the area around Blois and Orléans, but we stopped at "only" the châteaux of Chenonceau and Chambord, truly spectacular not only for the structures themselves, but also for their parks and gardens, kept with care bordering on the obsessive. The refreshment points and souvenir shops are also delightful, characteristic and not at all predictable.

Louvre and Champs Elisée

Today is my day: Champs-Élysées and the Louvre! For years I had dreamed of the legendary fashionista stroll, but above all of the "museum of museums"! Once we launched our assault on the Louvre, which is organized to perfection right from the ticket office, - where loads of people, especially Japanese, take photos in front of the Inverted Pyramid (the echo of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code has still not died down) - with loads of enthusiasm and a desire to see everything there was to see, we could not resist the immensity of the works housed there and in the end we skipped quite a few things to get to the Egyptian section, Tommaso and Francesco's favourite destination.

I must say that I feasted my eyes on so many legendary paintings, like those by Arcimboldo or Leonardo's Madonna of the Rocks, while I only saw the Mona Lisa from a distance, as she was submerged by thousands of heads (see the reference to Dan Brown above…) At the exit there is a sort of gallery of souvenir shops that makes your mouth water and that we certainly cannot turn our noses up at! (Some say we are among the most consumerist families around…) Back at the hotel loaded with packages, I raided the L'Occitane shop - which even had a sale on! -, while the others rest and relax, I, still in the grip of shopping frenzy, dash off to the supermarket and then to the newsstand: what a delight! For dinner we go to the Lebanese restaurant near the hotel: delightful and classy!

Villette and Saint Germain

Today Villette Science Park! To top off our luck we witnessed a vraie grève française! There were loads of workers on strike protesting over failed contract renewals – how original! It is really true that in certain things the whole world is the same! – and they kindly let us in without paying! This Science Park is truly astonishing: there are spaceships, driving and flight simulators, a route inside the human body, submarines…The kids went crazy and so did we! After a snack – questionable…- at the Park's refreshment point, we made a feeble attempt to go and see the Sainte-Chapelle, but they had déjà serré, so we dashed off to the Quartier Latin in search of the church of Saint-Sulpice – The Da Vinci Code again… It is a bit different from how I imagined it, less medieval, gloomier and dustier, and with loads of articles pinned up on the notice board about the danger of Dan Brown's book.

Perhaps there is some truth in the articles, but it is also true that thanks to the influx of people drawn in by the Code, major restoration work was started that, I believe, would otherwise have been unthinkable. We wander around Saint-Germain and even spot "Les Deux Magots", the famous bistro of intellectuals like Françoise Sagan, Sartre, Hemingway… We too enjoy a real café parisien – 3 euros, but what a satisfaction! – then we treat ourselves to a French dinner of soupe à l'oignon, raclette and fondue!

Last episode...

And here we are at the last instalment: ready to leave, we dive into a nostalgic little tour of our favourite shops, the crêperie, the Tuileries gardens… Then we pick up our weapons and baggage again and, overflowing with memories, we board for the Eternal City. Au revoir Paris, prochaine à la tourne!