Category: Europe2025

It’s a bit of a slow news day today, so set your expectations accordingly.

Today is our last day (… actually, our last morning) in Paris before we head to the airport to catch a flight to Bergen via Amsterdam, out of Charles de Galle airport.

And our last chance for croissants for breakfast.

We did the dinner cruise last night and got home pretty late, so we didn’t get up too early this morning. We had already done our final pack last night, so we only needed to do a final final pack this morning.

The weather has been nice for our stay in Paris, with blue sky and high clouds for most of the time. Today was different though, with steady drizzle.

It has also been quite cool here in Paris, and we have needed to wear our down jackets for warmth. But today was a rainy type of cold, and not pleasant.

We had our regular carb load for breakfast, then MBW needed some moisturiser, so we did a quick trip to Monoprix around the corner. On the way back from Monoprix we passed Bo&Mie (a fancy bakery/patisserie) and we stopped for some snacks to keep us going.

We had two flights today – Paris to Amsterdam, and then Amsterdam to Bergen in Norway – and even though they provide “snacks” on the plane, you just never, never know. So we bought some “just in case” products in case the worst possible thing happened.

I’ve noticed a few beggars on the streets here in Paris. Like beggars in other cities across the world, Paris beggars tend to sit on the footpath with their legs jutting out into the pedestrian traffic, and with a little paper cup for coins.

Obviously I feel sorry for anyone who needs to exist like that, and it must be even harder when the weather is cold and it is raining.

But it was hard to feel sorry for a particular beggar on one street, who was sitting there playing on his relatively new iPhone.

I also love the sound of the French language being spoken. It has a very romantic sound to it.

There was a young couple on a train sitting near us yesterday, and they were making these big googly-eyes faces at each other, and there was lots of talking and smiling. I couldn’t understand a word that they were saying – in fact, they could have been discussing getting new tyres on a car – but it sounded really romantic 🙂

So we collected our snacks and went back to the hotel to do final final final pack and check of the room. We headed down to reception to check out, then had to lug our suitcases down the final spiral staircase to get down to ground level. Unfortunately the lifts stopped at level 1.

You will recall that I discussed the lack of accessability at the Metro stations. Out the front door, around the corner to the entrance of the Metro station, and I had to lug our suitcases down another couple of flights of stairs to get into the subway.

And from there, it was all very pedestrian, I’m sorry to say.

An hour trip on the RER train to the airport, print baggage tags, drop off suitcases, go through security, and then sit down and wait for our first flight.

The departure lounge was crawling with people – as usual – and we decided to get coffee and eat our snacks … just to keep up our strength. And I’m sure that you know by now that it is important to take bathroom breaks when you can, because you neved know when the next opportunity will come up.

I went down to the men’s toilets, and as I was standing at the urinal the guy next to me started speaking (in French). I wasn’t sure that he was speaking to me (… well, I had no idea what he was saying, so I didn’t respond anyway), but I find it pretty unnerving (and distracting) when people think that they are so important that they cannot take a break from phone calls just to take a tinkle.

In any case I could only hear his side of the conversation, and he was saying over and over “… oui … oui … oui … oui …”

I wasn’t sure whether he was telling the caller what he was doing, or exerting me to greater effort, but it made me very uncomfortable 🙁

We boarded on time and departed on time, and then … disaster. Catastrophe!

The worst possible thing happened. Unimaginable!!

The in-flight service was started, and everyone was handed … a cucumber sandwich. What kind of a sick joke is that? What ever happened to the humble packet of peanuts?

The flight was absolutely packed. Is it just me, or does everyone else watch people coming down the aisle and just wishing that you could choose who will sit in the empty seat beside you?

We landed at Amsterdam on time, did a quick transit to the next terminal to catch our connecting flight, boaded on time and departed for Bergen.

I mentioned earlier how beautiful French sounds when it is spoken. In Amsterdam airport, all we could hear was Dutch – a very guttural language that sounds very harsh. Sorry Dutch people.

And another packed flight, but fortuntely no cucumber sandwiches this time!

And that’s about it.

We collected our bags and found the light rail train to take us into the city for our next couple of nights.

It is cold in Bergn. I thought that Paris was cold at 6 degrees, but Bergen is very cold with 1 degree that feels like -1 degrees.

We found our way to the Zander K hotel, checked in, then went for a quick wander to find some dinner. After all of the rich French food over the last few days, we felt like something light and fresh. We found a local supermarket that sells salad items buffet-style – you collect a bowl and load up whatever you want for the flat rate of about NOK180/kg – about $25/kg. Chicken, salad, coleslaw, pineapple and corn, and some pasta salad.

Not exactly cold weather food – a bowl of hot salty chips would have been better – but sometimes you just have to make a sacrifice.

This is a much nicer hotel than the one we had in Paris, but also much newer. And the bathroom floor is heated … so you stand in the shower feeling all toasty from both ends 🙂

We have a Bergen walking tour tomorrow (Tuesday), and then on Wednesday we kick off the Norway in a Nutshell trip. The first leg of that trip – the train – leaves from right across the street.

I think it is going to be expensive here in Bergen, but I’ll validate that hypothesis tomorrow and let you know.

Ciao

Today was our last full day in Paris, and we only had a couple of things booked. So, hopefully, we might be able to give ourselves a bit of a rest from all of the walking.

Experience tells me that muscle pain is normally bad on day +1, but it peaks on day +2 … and true to form, getting out of bed was even harder today.

Sigh 😕

But we can’t let sore legs get in the way of our last day exploring Paris.

We haven’t done a great deal of overseas travel since COVID shut everything down. We did a short (3 day) trip to Uluru before Christmas 2023, and we both got COVID.

Then we did a 2 week trip to Singapore and Thailand not long after I retired in May 2024, and I seem to recall having some tummy issues from the different water and food, despite being very careful to clean out teeth with bottled water.

So I’ve been waiting for the inevitable to happen while we have been here in Paris … yet somehow, we have both dodged a bullet.

Maybe there is something inherently therapeutic from eating croissants for breakfast every day?

So today we had two things planned – a visit to Saint Chapelle and the Conciergerie at 9.00am, and a dinner river cruise at 8.45pm.

8.45pm is a timeslot that I associate with getting into my pajamas, not starting dinner … but when in Rome … or when in Paris too, I guess …

I had no real expectations about Saint Chappelle other than the fact that MBW said it is a church with stained glass windows, and that people say it is worth doing.

So there are two things I can say here: I have seen stained glass in people’s front doors, but that doesn’t mean I’d pay money to go and see them. And secondly, I know of people – although nobody personally – who say you should have a colonic irrigation occasionally, but that doesn’t mean I have any desire to have one myself, or that I’d even enjoy it.

But I’m willing to keep an open mind.

Oh, an open mind about the stained glass windows, not the colonic irrigation … my mind is most definitely closed to that.

We had our normal ablutions and headed down for breakfast. Croissants, baguettes, coffee, yoghurt … same as the last 2 days, and hopefully again tomorrow.

I could get used to this.

Several months ago, my GP sent me for an ECG – long story short, she was checking to confirm that there was nothing wrong with my ticker, rather looking for something that was wrong with it. My father had an unusual heart condition, and my GP wanted to confirm I don’t have the same condition (… I don’t BTW. Hooray for me!)

But somewhere in conversation with my GP, I apparently used the words “chest” and “pain” in the same sentence, and that faux pas resulted in another visit to the cardiologist for a stress ECG – that’s the one where they wire you up and make you run on a treadmill until you collapse – and hopefully don’t need CPR (… I didn’t BTW. Horray again for me!!)

That test gave a result that seemed to concern the cardiologist (he said that the result was “equivocal” (ie ambiguous), so he sent me for yet another test where they inject you with contrast dye and look and see what happens. An angio-something-or-other.

It turns out that everything is working exactly as it should “for someone your age” (whatever that means), but in the final debrief, Dr Gus did caution me to “go easy on the croissants in France” but didn’t give any particular context about what exactly that meant.

But I digress. Where was I? … croissants, breakfast, stained glass, sore legs … OK.

Breakfast done, we got our stuff and headed out to Saint Chappelle.

A 9.00am entry was probably a little earlier than I’d have liked, but it turns out it was only about a 10 minute walk away. So off we went.

One of the problems I’ve noticed with Paris is that they haven’t done very well on the accessibility front. Cobblestoned streets that are very uneven, and buildings (and subways) that have lots of steps and no elevators is all a bit of a problem if you have problems walking … or even if every step you take hurts.

I suppose that when they built these things anywhere from 200-600 years ago, the thought of preplanning for elevators wasn’t a consideration.

MBW goes to an exercise class a couple of times each week, so she wasn’t suffering the effects of long-term slothful inactivity like I was.

Frankly, I was having trouble keeping up with her. And when we had to go down flights of stairs to get into a subway, it was a whole new experience in pain.

But we got to Saint Chappelle, and we queued up in the “I already have a ticket” queue, and waited for the doors to open so that we could go through the usual security checks.

I find it a bit perplexing that you’re subjected to the same – or greater – level of security screening to look at some stained glass windows as you are to get into an airport! And treated with the same suspicion.

For all of the painful walking and security screening, i have to say that the windows of this church were simply amazing. Photos of the building and the windows simply can’t give the perspective, or do it justice.

You can only spend so long looking at coloured glass windows before it was time for us to move on to the Conciergerie.

I had no idea what this building was about, but I learned that this was a significant building during the times of the French Revolution. Marie Antoinette was held here for some time before being executed, along with many other prisoners.

The building held the law courts, prison cells, and was also part of the aristocracy’s very luxurious home.

The history is quite astonishing, but the sheer size of the buildings is mind-boggling. The level of detail in the stonework and the way it has been constructed is amazing .. especially considering that much of it is hundreds of years old.

The thing that made the experience even more engaging was that you are handed a tablet (like an iPad) on entering, and as you wandered through the buildings, you scan these codes along the way. Then, holding the tablet up, you see the buildings and rooms as they are now, but you also get this augmented reality view so you also see the buildings as they would have been during the French Revolution, including sounds from that era.

History meets technology. Well done, Paris!!

We spent a very pleasant couple of hours there, and then we decided to go for a walk to the Louvre. Now, the last time that we were in Paris (>30 years ao) we visited the Louvre. For sure it is something that you have to do at least once in your lifetime, but – speaking candidly – my recollection was that it was all pretty underwhelming.

We had no real desire to do it again, but we did want to go and have a look at the glass pyramid, at the very least.

The Louvre is surrounded by this incredible building known as the Louvre Palace, parts of which are >900 years old.

The Palace is unbelievably large … it just goes on and on and on. There must be literally hundreds of rooms in the Palace, and why anyone needs a house that big is beyond me. I think that it was Mary Antoinette that said “if they (the peasants) have no bread then let them eat cake instead”, which just demonstrates how out of touch with reality they were.

It’s probably not surprising that they had a revolution and she lost her head at the guillotine.

According to the InterGoogle, the population of the world is something over 8 billion people … and I reckon that most of them were queued up to get in and see the Louvre. I guess that it was a nice sunny Sunday afternoon, but the place was just nuts.

It was now early afternoon and we hadn’t had lunch, so we loaded some value onto our Navigo Easy cards and played subway ninjas again. We headed off to some food markets that we have heard good things about.

Sadly, by the time we got there they were closing, so we caught the train back towards our Hotel and went to Bo&Mie (a patisserie) for lunch.

Paris has this really nifty system where you can open their app (like our Translink app) and rub your card (like our goCard) on the back of your phone, and it tells you how much value you have remaining on your card. You can also buy and load more credit directly from your phone to your card.

A light lunch, and back to the hotel for a bit of a rest and cleanup before dinner on Le Calife. This trip has a number of highlights for us, and a dinner cruise on Le Calife was one of them.

It wasn’t cheap – about 234 Euros, but it was a very pretty cruise up the Seinne eating some pretty fancy food, and watching many of the amazing Paris landmarks go by.

The only disappointing part about the meal was that it very noisy with kids and foreigners on board … seriously, why are there so many foreigners in Paris?

But still a nice way to spend our last night in Paris.

We docked around 11.00pm and walked the 10 minutes back to our hotel for bed.

Another great day in Paris!

Tomorrow we head off towards Norway and then Finland, hoping to see the Northern lights.

Stay tuned …

Ciao

Today I either foiled an attempted pickpocketing atempt, or I upset a couple of the locals.

Or both. But I’ll talk more about that later.

We slept well again last night. I’m still waking a couple of times during the night and wondering where I am, but I’m going back to sleep fairly quickly. From all reports, MBW is experiencing the same.

I was right about being in pain this morning. When I was awake enough to swing my legs out of bed, I found that the mental process and the physical process were disconnected. I’m certain that my brain issued a “put your feet on the floor” instruction, but my legs didn’t respond.

And so it was with much groaning and moaning that I forced myself out of bed and into the shower.

Everything hurt. My feet hurt, my calf muscles hurt, my hips hurt, my glutes hurt … everything hurt. This body is not designed to take that kind of punishment that comes from walking more than 22,000 steps in a day when I usually fail to achieve my pitiful target of 7,500.

But a hot shower and the promise of more croissants for breakfast got me moving.

Breakfast was again – fortunately – croissants, baguettes, cream cheese, butter, yoghurt, cheese, and coffee with hot milk.

I won’t embarrass myself with details of the disgusting display of gluttony at breakfast, but let’s just say that I didn’t need to eat again for quite some time.

If I’d been able to find a warm, hot rock I would have laid down and gone into hibernation for the winter.

Today was a pretty easy day, with only a walking tour of Montmartre planned at 11.00am. The problem was that walking hurt, and Montmartre is at the top of a hill that we needed to walk up.

We decided to risk a bus trip to Montmatre. It turns out that Google Maps is smart all over the world, and it told us which bus to catch, where to catch it from, and where to get off. We purchased tickets from the driver for €2.50 each.

We got to the meeting point early and so we just wandered around and looked in some of the shops.

Across the road from the meeting point was the Moulin Rouge and we got the history on how the Montmartre district came into being. It was all to do with a move by the current (at that time) royalty to try and reserve the centre of Paris for the wealthy people, and so this was achieved by moving all of the factories (and working class people) out to the north of the city.

Because this became a cheap place to live, all of the poor artists moved out there also.

Anyhow it was an interesting – although painful – 90 minute walking tour, and we finished at Sacre Couer. It is a magnificent old building built in various styles that were in vogue at the time.

Entrance was free, so we queued up and did a walk around inside the church.

We did a wander through the Montmatre area where all of the painters and artists gather. I acknowledge that it was a Saturday, but the sheer volume of people was mind-boggling! Cafes were crowded and the streets were choked with people.

We have been warned that this is an area that draws pickpockets and scammers, and we had been advised to be on high alert.

We were getting hungry, so we decided to go in search of a boulangerie (French for bakery, but oh so much more than a bakery …) and a quick Google search determined that there was a highly rated one about 500m away called Pain Pain (= Bread Bread) … which seemed oddly appropriate.

Roast beef, mustard and salad on a baguette and a couple of other things for dessert for about €11.50 (about $18 AUD).

We did a quick walk through Galleries Lafayette which is like an exclusive shopping centre with a ceiling that would rival the Sistine Chapel, and also a walk through the Covered Passages. These are like shops inside a mall (or walkway) between two streets.

The other thing that we really wanted to see was the Palais Garnier (kinda like the Sydney Opera House, but probably built 1000 years earlier). We got there at about 3.50pm only to find that it closed a 4.00pm, so we decided to head towards home.

Google Maps told us which bus to catch, and from which stop …but when one finally turned up, the driver only had one (1) ticket available for sale and didn’t seem particularly concerned that it meant that we couldn’t board.

All reports are that the transit police here in Paris are pretty ruthless and unforgiving, and the possibility of a €50 fine because one of us didn’t have a valid ticket didn’t seem like a particularly appealing prospect.

Plan B was the Metro (train), so we found the station, bought tickets, and caught the “8” train towards home with only one transfer to a different line.

We have been warned about pickpockets – particularly around train stations and on trains. Their tactics include moving in a group and pushing you, then getting irate while they are quietly stealing stuff out of your bags or your pockets.

In fact, there are more warning announcements on the trains about pickpockets than there are about upcoming stations, so it is obviously a problem.

There are a couple of things that I remember about Paris from the last time we were here 30+ years ago, and people pushing and shoving on the trains was one of the standout memories.

The other vivid memory is the steak tartare that i ordered in error, without realising what i was ordering, but I’ve never made that mistake again in my life.

We got to our destination station and there was a crowd of people on the platform. When the doors opened they just surged forward while I was trying to get out. Fortunately (or unfortunately) I probably had a 20kg advantage over a young lady who was leading the charge onto the carriage and we collided, with the result that I kept my forward momentum while she was pushed backwards into the crowd behind her.

And then there was some shouting from her boyfriend (or perhaps her fellow pickpocket).

He could have been saying “welcome to Paris”, but I suspect that he was telling me to go somewhere else. Somewhere hot.

In any case, their behaviour was either incredibly rude, or classic pickpocket and frankly I wasn’t concerned either way. A quick check confirmed that I still had my wallet and my phone, so we were good to go.

And besides, it just goes to show that those extra croissants came in handy after all … 🙂

We came back to the hotel for a bit of a rest, then got ready to go out for a bite of dinner at a proper sit-down establishment.

Many of the restaurants in Paris (possibly France) have set menu option, so for the grand sum of €12.90 each (plus another €4.50 each for coffee), we had a reasonable 3-course meal from the set menu – about 6 options each for entree, main, and dessert.

And that was dinner for the grand sum of €34.80. It doesn’t sound like much, but when you add another 50% of the value to bring it to AUD, it wasn’t exactly a cheap meal, although not an expensive one either.

The most disappointing part of dinner is that the French still allow smoking at outside tables, which inevitably leads to drifting second-hand smoke as a complement to your meal.

And that was about it for the day.

We are both still pretty tired from the travel and jetlag, but so long as we keep up a regular schedule we will get over it soon enough.

We are on the second floor of the Hotel Cluny Square overlooking a busy street, and the Saturday night revellers are pretty noisy, but I’m sure that tiredness from walking another 17,500 steps today will overcome any noise from down on the street.

Tomorrow we are off to see Saint Chappelle and the Conciergerie, so I’m sure that will be an education. Then tomorrow night we have a dinner cruise on the Seine starting at 8.00pm.

Should be fun, and I’ll tell you about it tomorrow.

#Europe2025

Ciao

We slept the sleep of the dead last night.

By about 7.00pm we were both so tired that we couldn’t stay awake, so I took a sleeping tablet and got ready to head off to the land of nod.

I know that taking a sleeping tablet when I’m tired may seem counter-intuitive, but I struggle to sleep well at the best of times and I wasn’t prepared to take the risk of waking in the middle of the night and contemplating the mysteries of the universe.

MBW is a different story.

If sleeping was an olympic sport, MBW would be on the podium. Actually, she’d probably be acccepting the gold medal.

So I was showered, in my PJs, and self-medicated when MBW annouced that she was going to clean her teeth.

I’m not actually sure how long that took, because the bus to the land of nod had already departed from the station.

I woke a couple of times – around 1.30am and again around 4.00am – but  went back to sleep both times and emerged from about 12 hours of sleep around 7.30am.

We are staying in the Hotel Cluny Square, just around the corner from Notre Dame. It’s very convenient to transport and the Seine, and it gets good reviews on the InterGoogle.

Compared to hotels in Australia, the room is quite 3 star, although the splatter marks on the walls and ceiling probably bring it back to 2 1/2 stars. I have no idea what they are – well, I have a few ideas what they might be – but I prefer not to think too hard about that.

CSI would probably have a field day in this room with their black lights.

As I’ve said before, it’s always best not to ask a question if you don’t want to know the answer.

The room is essentially clean, tidy and comfortable. It’s a bit small, and a bit dark, but quite a charming litte hotel and very functional for our needs.

Feeling a great deal better about ourselves than we had last night, we got up, showered, dressed, and went down for breakfast – included in our stay.

By the time we got there, it appears that all of the good stuff was already gone, so we settled for some toast … and then the good lady who was serving breakfast brought us a tray loaded with croissants, baguettes, coffee, yoghurt, and cheese.

It was all very good and very French. There is something about French croissants that is very special 🙂 And their baguettes … and their butter.

A couple of young ladies came down for breakfast while we were finishing ours – they drank their coffee and got up to leave without touching their bakery items.

I was plotting how I might swoop in and steal their breakfast when the waitress came back in and they told her that they were gong for a run (… seriously, nobody likes a showoff …) and could they take the rest of their breakfast for later.

Bugger 🙁

Back to our room, loaded up our stuff, and we were off on our first full day to explore Paris. Today was our “big day” in Paris, with much of the day planned out in advance.

First stop was the Musee d’Orsay, an old railway station that was falling into decay, and was refurbished in 1986. It is a beautiful old building filled with many arfefacts and art collections ranging from paintings, to sculptures.

The French have something of a predisposition towards full frontal (mostly female, but also male) nude sculpures, all of whom look perkier than I have ever felt or looked.

In fact I have seen so much nudity at the Musee d’Orsay, that I have mostly lost any interest in going to the Moulin Rouge …!

After that we headed over to the Eiffel Tower for a 2.00pm ride to the top level and a glass of champagne.

I would be lying if I said that I enjoyed the ride in the elevator to the top level … in fact the only good thing about it was that it was better than getting there by climbing the stairs (… which MBW tells me is what we did last time – albeit that we only went to the first level last time.) And the glass of champagne – Moet no less – helped to dull the fear of being that high while not strapped safely into an aeroplane seat.

The views from the top were spectacular though.

After that we headed to the Arch de Triomphe for a 6.30pm climb to the top to watch the sunset, and to see the Eiffel Tower sparkle at 7.00pm.

Amazing!

The taffic around the Arch de Triomph is seriously mental, and you would have to be certifiably insane to tackle it in anything smaller, or more precious than a garbage truck.

There was lots of horn honking, shouting and waving of hands (… my kind of driving, actually …) and I cannot understand how none of the people on bicycles in the mayhem didn’t get killed.

The police here seem to love using their sirens when they are driving … in fact I can’t recall seeing a police car (or bike) on the road that wasn’t using it’s siren.

And European emergency vehicles have that unusual two-tone BEEP-BARP sound that is  perfect example of the Doppler effect in action as they go past.

We did some train hopping home to the HCS via the Metro or RER, grabbed a bite to eat and were back in our room by 8.30pm.

A big day, but a good day. I think I walked about 22,000 steps today, so I’m sure that my legs will have something to say about that tomorrow.

Shower, bed and we will be ready for a visit to Monmartre tomorrow. (Acually, I will be ready for more baguettes, croissants, and cheese tomorrow, and if I don’t eat myself into an early grave then I’ll be looking forward to seeing Monmartre too!)

Ciao

#Europe2025