September 2010

Our final full day in Paris. We had a lazy morning, packed and went to Amelie’s cafe for lunch. We’ve been many times and it’s a solid little cafe. Never too busy with tourists. Highly recommend it. Nice to say goodbye to the Montmartre area.

After lunch it rained. It rained heavily. Our final port of call was to visit la Defense and see Grande Arche de la Defense. According to ArchDaily;

Situated just outside of Paris in the business district of la Défense, the Grande Arche completes the Historical Axis – extending from the Louvre along the Champs-Elysees to the Arche de Triomphe – and guides Paris to the future.

You can see it from the Champs-Elysees which we walked the previous day. I’d like to revisit it on a less wet day as we didn’t spend much time there.

We returned to Refuges des Fondu for tea. Packed out. Great fun. The thing to do there is sign your name on the wall when you visit. We’ve tried to find our original ones but in the years we’ve been we never could. We have seen John Lasseter’s name up there with a drawing of Buzz and Woody from Toy Story. Cool. I love the fun of it all and that you cook the food to your liking. There’s no rush or anything. It’s a great little place.

Our final stop in Paris was in torrential rain to get a long exposure photo I had been hoping for. We made it just in time. I didn’t fancy standing around in the rain.

I noticed how interesting the bridge we were standing under looked so I took a photo. The bridge would later feature in Inception. That’s pretty cool.

On our way back to the hotel I noticed that all this time we could see the light from the Eiffel Tower but we never noticed it till our final moment in the city.

So ended my first trip to Paris. I loved the architecture. The city feels like it embraces nature in a way other cities don’t. Lots of window boxes and green everywhere. It’s a beautiful city to wander around or to sit in a cafe and look at over an espresso. I miss the it.