Our Odyssey: Paris in October

Well we are in Paris - finally!! The joys of staff travel..... When Barry booked the tickets a few weeks ago he was told that the tickets were "confirmed" which we assumed meant that we had seats on the flight - but no - not in Qatar.... that means that its confirmed and 'firm' that you have a stand-by booking - and thus the fun began!! Although there were a lot of people who thought that this holiday period was too short (only a week) and too close to the start of school (only been back 6 weeks) to be worth going away, there were an awful lot of people that thought otherwise.

We turned up at 6am in preparation for the flight we had originally booked on - Friday morning 8am - to find out at 7.15am that we were being offloaded as there was no space. Trip to the ticket office and the numbers looked bad for the afternoon flight, so we rebooked onto the early Sat morning flight (2am), which at that stage looked promising - only us booked as staff and no overselling in economy and free seats in business and first. We went home for the rest of the day - did some chores - had a nap and generally mooched about. Back to the airport at around midnight, to find that there were now 6 people listed ahead of us (it goes on priority ratings) and so at around 1.15am we found out we were to be offloaded for the second time - another trip to the ticket office and rebooked on the afternoon flight (2pm). This one looked better - once again we were the only ones listed and this time there were 26 seats in economy that had not been sold. Home again for some much needed sleep and back to the airport at midday hoping it would be third time lucky....... and it was!!! Our names were top of the list - and had the green tick meaning we were to be onloaded!

The flight itself was pretty uneventful - we were seated split - but at least in the same section of the plane and the check-in staff had helped us out by re-seating us in pairs. Barry and Jacob next to each other and Ethan and I across the aisle from each other. We landed at Charles De Gaulle on time - took forever to taxi across to the terminal - and made our way through. We then headed for an open space to hunt through the suitcases for our jackets as it was a tad chilly compared to Qatar! We took the train into Paris and swapped across to the Metro for a quick ride out to where we are staying which is a lovely little apartment on the 6th floor of a building in the 12th (for those of you that know Paris). No problems finding the place and happy to find that there is a supermarche and boulangerie/patisserie at the front door and a cafe across the road! We dumped our bags and headed straight out to find some food as it was about 9.30pm and we hadn't had dinner! We found a nice little Italian place and enjoyed a really nice couple of pizzas with lots of ham!!!

Dining - kitchen- living area

the front balcony looking down to the street

view from the balcony

the roundabout - intersection at the apartment

We slept in (Barry & I - the boys were awake at 4am the first time) and took our time eating breakfast and getting ready - before we headed out to Etoile - Charles de Gaulle, which is the station at the Arc de Triumphe. We looked all around the base of the Arc and headed off down the Champs-Elysees. We window shopped at a number of high end stores and looked at some interesting new cars in the Peugeot and Mercedes-Benz showrooms before Jacob bleated about his stomach being empty (so whats new he is virtually unfillable a.t.m) and we took a detour into the nearby McDonalds. More window shopping down the Champs-Elysees followed until we reached the end of the shopping district at the Grande Palais and Petit Palais.

Last time we found the australian embassy - this time the Qatari - in Place de Charles de Gaulle, right opposit ethe Arc de Triumphe.

View from the Arc de Triumphe down the Avenue de Grand Armee towards La Defense and the Grand Arche.

Detail on the Arc de Triumphe

Champs-Elysees

Peugeot

Mercedes Benz

View up a side street from the Champs-Elysees, towards l'Opera

We continued down the Champs-Elysees this time through the gardens of the Square Marigny and its Theatre and on towards the Place de la Concorde. In the summer we didn't get a very good look at the Place de la Concorde as they were in the process of breaking down all the seating and scaffolding that had been in place for the Bastille day celebrations. This square is the current home of an obelisk taken from the Temple at Luxor - but it used to be the home of La Guillotine and is where Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette lost their heads. We then continued into the Tuileries Gardens and on to the Louvre. We flirted with the idea of heading into the Louvre for an entire day later in week - before we both decided that would be way too stressful with the boys and thus we made a date for some time in the future, where we could view it at our leisure without the children in tow!

Paris was good in summer - but is much prettier now, with less people and the trees all in their various autumn colours.

The theatre in the Square Marigny

Fountain in the Square Marigny

Grand Palais

Statue of Georges Pompidou in the gardens across from the Grand Palais

Ministry of the Navy in Place de Concorde

Obelisk from Temple in Luxor, previous site of La Guillotine

View of the Arc de Triumphe and the Champs-Elysees from the obelisk

By this stage we were all a tad peckish - and our original plan of waffles in the Tuileries Garden was squashed by the cafe having either (a) a new non-summer menu or (b) it being too early in the afternoon compared to last time. Instead we headed from the Louvre across the Pont des Arts, with its millions of padlocks attached by lovers - lured by the sound of bagpipes! Only to find a bagpipe busker - dressed in traditional Scottish attire - on the middle of the Pont - that was weird sight number one today. We walked across the road and turned back towards the Place de Concorde looking for a cafe. Enter three police on motorcycles blowing whistles and gesturing to cars to make turns - all very curious and weird (#2) - except that following fast on their heels where hundreds of people on roller blades (Weird sight #3)! We had earlier seen from the train on our way to the Arc the start of a fun-run with thousands of people running along the Seine near the Eiffel Tower - dressed mostly in pink, so we think it was one of the breast cancer runs that are happening this month around the world - but it was not quite so clear what these hundreds on skaters were up to - we can only assume that this was also part of the event. It was an interesting interlude to the afternoon watching them all come streaming past. On the next block we found a little cafe and sat down for afternoon tea.

Tuileries Gardens

In the Tuileries Garden with the top of the Musee d'Orsay in the background

One wing of the Louvre

The Louvre pyramid

Walking out from the Louvre to the Pont d'Arts

The 'city' and the Seine with Pont Neuf.

With a full stomach and given the time was now approaching 4.30pm, Jacob was a little tired so we decided to head for home as we really needed to stop at a larger supermarche for some groceries. We walked down past the Musee d'Orsay and on to the Pont Alexandre III and then down towards the Hotel des Invalides to the metro station.