La Belle Paris - Just as we remembered it...Fabulous

We arrived on the train, just a few hours from Amsterdam to Paris, pretty easy.
Destination - Gare du Nord.
Lets go Metro to our new house. Great idea.
We got as far as Gare du Austerlitz, then we needed to get to our next Port of Call, Maubert-Mutualité. We staggered down 3 flight of stairs with lots of Le Baggage to get to Line 10.
We still had more stairs to go, some bags were getting thrown by one member of the party.
Stressful! so we abandoned that scenario and we staggered back up the stairs to catch a cab.

Of course, so there were a lot of other people with the same idea so we went into the queue.
I was very taken with this old man.

He had appointed himself as “LeTaxi Controller”.
As a cab came up, he ushered it in and then pointed to the person at the front.
Of course he was expecting a tip…no-one obliged. He occupied himself, with also controlling his plonk, which was in an old plastic drink bottle. He would sit on the rubbish tin wait till the next cab came in, jump up, knock his drink bottle over, go through the exercise of trying to get money, then start all over again.
It may have been grey and cold standing in the queue but what great free entertainment.

So it was easy from then on.

Here we are.
St Germain Boulevard
Place Maubert

Luckily there was a lift ,as once again we are up several flights of stairs.

We may have got rid of the big bag but we were still carrying many kilograms.

Those bloody bags couldn't fit on in one go, so Dale went up first, only room for 2 bags and Dale.

I was a bit freaked at first, I get claustophobic. But I bit the bullet and did it. By the end of our stay, I was quite nochalant. Just jumped in, faced the mirror and talked to myself till the lift reached its destination.

The flat is so cute, hardly room to swing a cat but just perfect for us.
A note from a previous tenant mentioned the 24 hour Jazz Radio Station. Popped that on.
We are in France, wonderful.

Our living room for the next 6 days.Particuarly taken with the Loo. Great colour.
The bathroom
The kitchen.

Just perfect for us.
John and Jt were staying in Hotel Le Six, in the Montparnasse area.
We had a wine in the foyer and then out to eat.
Dale McCready, John’s son had come in from Compriene, which is north of Paris, to join us for dinner. He is DOP on the TV Drama series "Merlin" and it was great to see him.
It was an interesting start to the evening. We had 1 nearly dinner and 1 really dinner.
The nearly dinner was a little Seafood restaurant that caught our attention called Le Dome.
There was a lobster special, on the sign out front.
Sounds good, but things stared to go wrong fairly quickly .
No 1 We were seated at the rear next to the kitchen,
No 2 Opened the menu
1st item Lobster Salad with Tomato 60 euros
Oooh even asparagus 18 euros…oh well
3rd Mistake No service.
In unison, we let our feet do the walking, out we went.
That got them going, they chased us and tried to make amends but too late.
So we walked across the road to the Villa Borghese.
What a difference, Dale Mac and I had Veau Blanc with fried potatoes.

No gluten salads for John, Pizza and pasta for Dale and JT.
Lovely waiter, handsome, attentive and fun, what a change.
Happy Punters, Dale and Dale

Family Portrait, Montparnesse area. Sunday June 7th 2009Taxi home. Turns out Le Dome is one of Paris’ upscale restaurant.
So much for them then.