We left Tremigon this morning heading to Paris. About 5hrs of driving on motorways.
Halfway we stopped at the Le Mans 24Hr Motorsport Museum.
We spent about 2 hours there, and we’re not even motorsport fanatics!
We learned about the history of Le Mans, Grand Prix F1 racing and Rally driving. Obviously there were copious amounts of race cars in the exhibition.
We then hit the road again to get to Paris. Took what looked like the less stressful way in. We ended up on Avenue Foch headed right for the Place Charles DeGaulle etoile. ๐ฑ
Fortunately we turned off one street prior and only had to navigate a large roundabout with 10 interconnecting streets instead of 12!!
We made it into the carpark and there the car will stay until we leave. Have been to the supermarket and visited our first church – Chapelle de Notre Dame just down the road from where we’re staying.
We’ve booked a couple of really great things in Paris, have a few museums we want to go to that you can’t book, and are really looking forward to this week.
Our 1st full day in Paris. Metro app downloaded, tickets procured, route determined. We headed down the road towards the Trocadero Metro station and got sidetracked by the sight of the Eiffel Tower, so we stood and admired it for a few minutes.
Onto the train and headed off to the Liberation of Paris Museum – General LeClerc Museum – Jean Moulin Museum. Yes it is triple named.
The museum also has a bunker used by Colonel Henri Roi, a communist resistance fighter and an exhibit on Robert Capa a war photographer.
The Robert Capa exhibition was very interesting. He was Hungarian Jew who grew up Germany then fled to Paris in the early 30s. He photographed the Spanish Civil War, D-Day landings, the Liberation of Paris and the first (French) IndoChina war. During the Liberation, because he spoke German, he participated in some negotiations at some locations to get the Germans to surrender.
He was on a ship on D-Day as official photographer and went on Omaha Beach alongside soldiers. He apparently didn’t stay long as it was terrifying.
The bunker, 100 steps down, is where the resistance coordinated their activities.
The Germans knew about the bunker as it had been a government office (water department) but were oblivious as to it’s new use.
The main exhibition mainly focused on the events between 18th and 26th August 1944, General LeClerc and Jean Moulin. Fun fact, General LeClerc’s real name is Philippe De Hautecloque; he was injured in 1940, refused to surrender to the Germans, escaped to England and received new identity papers in the name the world knows him by.
We then headed back to our accommodation, via the Eiffel Tower again.
After a couple of hours rest we were back on our feet and heading to the Moulin Rouge for dinner and the show.
Wow. What a show. The costuming is incredible, would love to see how they manage the logistics and storage backstage!
I think they need to embrace equality a little more and reduce the clothing the blokes wear. Their sparkly skivvies (aka a dozen “White Wiggles” on the stage) when the girls are essentially naked is jarring!
Dinner was yum and we had a great seat without having to pay for VIP seats!
After the show, 11pm by this time, we jumped back on the Metro, it was packed, got off near our hotel and then walked the extra few blocks to finally see the Eiffel Tower lit up at night.
Today we went to a cooking class. Two trips on the Metro took us to the 5th Arrondissement. As we were early (early is on time!) we sat at a cafe on the corner and had a hot drink.
We were welcomed at the cooking class with croissants, pain au chocolat, coffee and tea. Introductions made – us, 2 Poms, 6 Yanks – and we chatted for a bit then we headed to the local market to buy the required ingredients, mostly fruit and vegetables with some fish also.
We were also offered tastings of about 6 cheeses, a piece of Brie was a particularly large tasting.
On the way back we stopped at a Roman amphitheatre hidden behind an apartment block, that was only discovered when someone started to build there.
Back at the kitchen we were to prepare, cook, serve and eat three courses. 1st course was “Champignons รก la Normandie” (mushrooms in a cream/butter/garlic and parsley sauce). 2nd was traditional Niรงoisse ratatouille with salmon or cod, beurre blanc and cucumber balls. Dessert was peach melba with raspberry coulis and vanilla ice-cream.
We were all given individual tasks to do for each dish. I was in charge of the base for the ice cream. Kevin sliced shallots and did the cucumber balls. When it came to the cooking everyone took a turn at whatever was needed.
All three courses, accompanied by French wine were delicious. It was 6 hours well spent!
Afterwards I took the metro back to the accommodation and for some silly reason Kevin walked via Notre Dame. (We’re visiting Notre Dame tomorrow)
He admitted that the metro was the option he should have taken on a hot day.
This morning we headed to Musรฉe de l’egouts, the sewer museum. We had wanted to visit this last time we were in Paris but it was being renovated.
When you enter the museum you descend into the sewers near Pont Alma. The audio tour takes you around the sewers explaining how and when they were built (1700s-1800s), how they work, how the clean them, and how they process the water.
Note, it does not get dumped into the Seine, but travels in pipes to a processing plant north of Paris.
It is true that a crocodile was found in the sewers in the 1980s, but only one. She was taken to a zoo in Brittany and died in 2021!
There was a slight smell at one point of the tour, not as bad as you might imagine, but enough for us to both pinch our noses!
We then headed towards the busy Ile-de-citรฉ. Grabbed a savoury crรชpe for lunch along the way and then headed to Notre Dame for the Tower tour.
424 steps up to the top and 424 steps back down again.
We got to see the newly installed wooden frames, the new roof and of course, amazing views from three different levels.
We were hoping to be able to enter the cathedral afterwards, but the queues were ridiculous in the blazing sun. We will try tomorrow morning first thing. Grabbing one of the limited scheduled tickets seems impossible at this time of year.
We headed back to our hotel to watch a little bit of Le Tour de France before we head back out for dinner at ‘Le Souffle’.
Up early this morning to get to Notre Dame before it opened. We did, and joined a queue of like-minded people.
We wandered around inside then went to have a hot drink at a cafe. There is still quite a bit of Notre Dame being repaired after the fire-mostly windows that need to be reinstated.
We then headed towards our food tour meeting point. Halfway there Kevin remembered he’d left our bag in the cafรฉ so went back to get it. It was still in the corner where we had sat thankfully!
We popped in to see a different church, St.Gervais – that had some really interesting abstract stained glass windows.
We then walked to meet our food tour in Le Marais.
During the food tour we tried Viennoiserie from a bakery that’s been operating since 1850 something;
cheese from a MOP cheesemaker; some wine, croque Monsieur; a duck croquette, a falafel, macaron, chocolate and a meringue all whilst walking around Le Marais and hearing about the area’s history and culture.
We then jumped on the Metro back to our hotel to have an hour off our feet before heading to the Arc de Triomphe to watch the final stage of the Tour de France.
We discovered that there were tickets being sold to watch the race from the Charles De Gaulle Etoile forecourt and the top of the Arch. Hoping we have a great view and see the riders up close.
Due to the dreadful Cap Feret and Bordeaux fires the entire stage is now being ridden in Paris, so we get a few extra laps to see. (They’ve needed to send emergency services to assist with evacuation of >200,000 people so couldn’t justify having them secure the race outside of Paris)
Watching the tour was fantastic.
Although difficult to get to because of road closures, it was a great location to watch it from as we could move around from one side to the other as desired, it wasn’t crowded, we could take a seat when we wished and had a giant screen to watch the parts of the race we couldn’t see.
On the last lap, some riders even stopped to watch the finish on the giant screen before they finished!
To top it off we could go up the arch without the usual crowds for an amazing view of Paris!
At the end of the race as soon as barricades started coming down, we crossed the empty road and walked the much shorter distance to our hotel, via a supermarket to grab a cold drink and some fruit to rehydrate!
Today, our last full day in Paris took us to Hรดtel des Invalides.
To say we were impressed would be an understatement. It is massive. We had no idea it was more than a gold dome. A one day visit barely skims the surface.
We started in the Dome, the area that is essentially a Mausoleum for military leaders and houses Napoleon Bonaparte’s tomb. A very large opulent tomb for a man exiled for 20years, but obviously welcomed back after his death. There were other tombs of his relatives and other significant military figures.
The most impressive tomb in Kevin’s opinion was that of Marshal Ferdinand Foch. He was the Supreme Allied Commander in WW1, 1918.
Sarah liked the tomb of Marshal Lyautey in bronze and brass with in inscription “The more I live in Morocco, the more I am convinced of the greatness of this country.” Having loved our time in Morrocco we can appreciate this statement!
Our next area was the Museum of the Order of Liberation. This was really interesting, again telling us about the resistance, how in the summer of 1944, they successfully sabotaged over 800 trains, severely damaging the German ability to move troops and equipment.
Many nations bestowed their own awards on General de Gaulle, these are on show from countries in South America, Africa and Europe.
It also presented information and personal effects belonging to the people, cities and military units that received the Order of Liberation for their acts of resistance.
From here we went to Saint Louis Cathedral, also known as the Soldiers Church. This cathedral is separated from the area with Napoleon’s tomb by a glass wall. By this wall is an altar that was used for religious ceremonies. This meant that the soldiers could attend the same mass as royalty but not be seen by them.
Next, yes, we were still at the Hรดtel des Invalides, was the museum of relief maps – essentially 3D models made so the King could survey his domain. This was the most fascinating area, maybe 30 relief maps of many towns in France of strategic importance, the biggest map was 56sqm, Bayonne.
The details in these maps were incredible, they even depicted fields that had been ploughed, as you could make out individual furrows and people working in fields or soldiers.
Some were created for battle planning, some for planning defence structures and some, like one of Mont Saint Michel, as a gift to the king in the 1600s.
These were once in the Louvre but were moved to Invalides in the late 1700s. There was even one of Villefranche-de-Conflent that we visited in March.
The final museum we visited, but didn’t spend hours in (unfortunately) was the Louis XIV โ Napoleon | 17th โ 19th century area.
This was a labyrinth of rooms full of military regalia, uniforms, sabres, lances, muskets etc.
Along the way there was information about the battles fought and won during this period.
Waterloo was the last battle covered.
We didn’t even get to the Guerre Mondial museums, or do half of the “general” audio guide sections! ( The full audio guide is actually available here )
We’ll have to come back!
We then went to get some lunch – it was 3:30 by this time and to find a post office to post a letter – they had a fabulous self-serve station to get the stamp!
An Unplanned Year 
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