Paris or Parigi

Day 1 - 27 July 2007 – The Journey from Milan to Paris

When I saw the train at the Milan Central Station that was to take us to Paris, I was thrilled. It was a TGV, the very fast train that I had wanted to experience. Leaving Milan was fairly sedate and even as we traveled through the plains outside Milan, we were scooting along at only about 130km/hr I estimate. Soon we saw the Alps looming still with snow on them and then before we knew it, we were in the Alps, climbing steadily towards the French border. I loved the Alpine scenery as it was so different to what we had seen so far. After a couple of long tunnels, I checked my cell phone and witnessed the border crossing by coverage provider! Our passports were never checked and we did notice subtle differences now we were in France. After leaving the Alps, we started to speed up and soon I noticed the speed increasing to the full cruising speed of up to 300km/hr. Villages passed in a second or so and farm animals and wild life had not even heard the train approaching as we passed them. It was really amazing. Either side of the track was a chain link fence for hundreds of km to keep out anything that might stray in the way of this bullet.

When we were reminded in Milan how long the train journey was, we had thought “what were we thinking going this long way by rail instead of flying??”. However, we did remember as soon as we settled in to our first class seats that it was to experience the country rather than just fly over it. You do get so much more from being there than being over it. It was worth it and amazingly when we arrived in Paris, we were not overly tired from the journey as we had expected.

When we arrived in Paris (after a 7 hour journey), we realized that we had not emotionally prepared ourselves for this leg of the journey, with different language and culture.

The most immediate thing we noticed was the temperature – it was 10 – 15 degrees cooler than Milan and overcast. In fact it started to rain as we arrived at the hotel. Quite a change from the last 6 weeks where we have rarely seen much cloud!

We managed to find the right Metro line and boarded the crowded train with all our luggage, including my pack which stuck out nearly a metre behind me. I did not realize this and got into the train and found that the door would only just close behind me. I also realized that I needed to do something before the next stop to allow new passengers to board, so I tried to turn around and position my pack over Kathy’s suitcase to more efficiently use the space available. I did not realize how much the pack protruded and apparently pushed Kathy into other passengers and I really annoyed a Parisian commuter, who had this pack stuck in his face. I guess I would have been annoyed too. Anyway, despite this, we managed to find our hotel, which is right in the centre of old Paris, not far from the Louvre. We did a bit of an explore and went up to the Champs Elysees, where I worked out where I would like to position myself for the Tour de France final.

Day 2 – 28 July 2007 – The Notre Dame

The next day we did a bit of exploration by foot to get our bearings and realized simply how big central Paris is. The parks are enormous and the open spaces around monuments and buildings make them spacious and really wonderful. What looked like a block or two on the map turned out to be several km on foot, so as we realized the scale of the map and our ability to get places, we decided to buy some tickets to allow us to go on a boat up and down the Seine on a “hop on hop off” basis. First stop was the Notre Dame. The queues were long, but moved quite quickly. Inside, the church is huge and a mass was being held while we were there. The place was absolutely packed with tourists (of course) and even though it was so huge, it was shuffle pace only inside. I was a bit embarrassed and annoyed at the flagrant abuse of the “no flash” rule by hundreds of people, who even took flash photos of the priest administering the mass. I thought this was most disrespectful, but what can you do? We have visited many many churches of this caliber now and the Notre Dame was certainly impressive, with many little side chapels and statues and huge tall vaulting roof. We hopped back on the boat for a full circuit and hopped off at the Eiffel Tower. The lines were so long, that we decided to come back early another day and instead wandered up to the Trocadero. This was an impressive structure, just down from the Eiffel Tower, with fantastic views back to the Tower.

Then in the evening, went walking looking for a restaurant that had been recommended in a guide book. We finally found it and it was an excellent experience. Probably the best cuisine. I have ever had and not over the top expensive as long as you don’t convert Euros to $!

Day 3 – 29 July 2007 – Tour de France

The next day was Sunday 29^th, Tour de France day. It was a day I had been looking forward to for so long, I was eager to get out and find my “posi” for the day – too eager as it turns out. By 9:30am I looking to get to my spot and found it blocked off. You could not get down the Champs Elysees at all; it was all blocked off for dignitaries and officials and there was no getting through. It was just too far to take all the back streets to get to the other end of the Champs, so I began to look at the closer end and everyone who was similarly looking was getting frustrated as all the good spots were reserved and they seemed to be continually moving all the barriers and moving people on. Finally I teamed up with a couple of Aussies and we happened to be in the right place at the right time when a barrier was put across a road and we got superb views right down the Rue de Rivoli which runs into the Champs Elysees. We were just on a corner as well, so while the riders would be going fast, we would get excellent views. It rained twice (once quite heavily) during the waiting time of 7 hours for the race to come by. One of the reasons that it is good to see the final in Paris is that the riders make 8 circuits of the Champs Elysees, so you get to see them go by 8 times. We were entertained for hours by pompous and officious Gendarmes, being ordered around by their superiors and then finally by the Tour de France advertising barrage of about 45 minutes worth of floats and trucks blaring their horns for their sponsored product. The peleton was meant to go by at about 4pm, but Kathy found me and told me that they still had 100km to go (which was true), but fortunately 50km of this was around the Champs. We could see the big screen TV which had live coverage and finally we saw the helicopters overhead. It was so exciting to see them appear from the tunnel and turn towards the Champs Elysees for the first time. The whole thing is an amazing performance, with all kinds of officials in cars and motorbikes all buzzing around the circuit. The bikes themselves were absolutely motoring and you could really tell this by the speed of all the cars.

I won’t bore you with too much more detail, except to say, each time they went by I would yell out “Go Julian Deane!!” – he is the only Kiwi in the TdF. The commentary was coming over a PA in French and in the last lap, I heard them mentioning him, so I was hooting for Julian Dean!! Julian is a “domestique” in one of the teams and his job is to be a “lead out” for a sprinter in his team. He has to “sling shot” this other guy to the finish and he was doing a great job and his sprinter (Thor Hushovd) actually came second in the stage. The crowd around me were laughing at my support for this unknown rider..

It was an amazing event and one I will not forget. The officiousness of the Police and Gendarmes was at times not all that friendly. In fact they were so eager to close the road after the cyclists had gone through that they forgot about one rider (the last) still to come through and were rushing to open the barricades for him and his pursuit entourage as he scooted down the home straight.

The officials would not let any of the public get close to the closing ceremony, so I decided to come back to the hotel after standing all day with no rest of any kind since 9:30am. I found that Kathy had been enjoying herself as well. After going to a local market and getting soaked in the rain as well, she had come back to the hotel to watch the live coverage and found that she could see the riders go past by looking out the hotel window. They went past the “T” intersection about 100m from our hotel.

A dinner close at hand was in order, so we found a recommended restaurant looking out onto the Louvre glass pyramid. It was a lovely setting and we spent some time just soaking in the “Frenchness” of the scene in front of us. It was lovely, with many people getting photographs of each other with this background. The meal was good and we were starting to not get rattled by the French manner in dealing with foreign tourists. If you have been here you will know what I am talking about.

Day 4 – 30 July 2007 – The Louvre

We decided to go down to the Louvre straight from breakfast in a local café and headed straight for the Mona Lisa, along with hordes of others with the same idea. There she was. A beautiful painting, but also surrounded by many, many other beautiful paintings. The sheer magnitude of the Louvre – you have to go there to understand. It is literally hectares of space with amazing things everywhere. After seeing the Mona Lisa, we just rambled through the Italian painting section and saw some amazing works there. Then we just wandered on and stumbled upon things that astound you time and time again. It is an unparalleled experience. I don’t believe that there is anywhere in the world with more amazing art. Napoleon III apartments are staggeringly opulent. Some of the famous works were new to me, but you could tell by the tourists gathering round them like bees on honey that this was famous, so we tagged along. The setting for the display of some of the statues was awesome, with glass roofs proving great lighting and a great feeling of space. Our hotel being so close was great, as we could head back for a rest and then went back for more. Great place and a “must see” in Paris.

Day 5 – 31 July 2007 – The Eiffel Tower & Arc de Triomphe & a bike shop!

Early starts to some of the top Paris sights are essential. When we got to the Tower by 930am, the queues were beyond the 30 minute wait point, but not too much. We were greeted by army personnel with automatic weapons. Took a photo of a young girl toting a AK47 or similar…The views from the 3 levels of the Tower were very different. From the top level, the views are entirely panoramic and going up the lift for the top section gives anyone with fear of heights a considerable dose of panic. Once there, you can see a long, long way in all directions. There was even a NZ flag up there with the distance to Auckland! I took a photo of it with Kathy reflected in the sign. The second level offered views with more perspective of the land contours and the lower level offered a café and great people viewing of the hordes awaiting to ascend. We took the lift to the top and then the stairs from level 2 to the ground.

We took the metro on to the Arc de Triomphe. When arriving there you suddenly get a perspective on how big this is from the size of the people you can see on the top. It is huge. I went up the stairs (no lift here) and inside there is a museum and then the upper viewing platform, which offers unparalleled views up the Champs Elysees.

From there we went on to a bike shop out a little further from the Arc. It was in fact a let down and I realized that bike shops are pretty much the same the world over. However, we did get to see a large Parisian shopping mall which was nearby and had a mooch around there. We went back to our hotel and bought a couple of Tour de France cycling shirts from a street vendor there – the prices were starting to come down already!

Overall our experience of Paris was, fantastic world class sights to see, but those in the Tourist Industry seem hostile to anyone who is not fluent in French. We sort of knew this, but to experience it is something else. After a while you start to expect this and the exceptions are so surprising. Our sincere efforts to communicate in French were rewarded with something akin to contempt in unspoken manner and body language. It is not only English either. We spoke to an Italian couple who were experiencing exactly the same thing and were totally baffled by it! On our last night we went to an Italian restaurant where we were greeted by the owner as long lost friends and before long were communicating with him in Italian and he was recommending menu choices etc. This was such a great feeling and the contrast was remarkable.