We booked a hotel while on the train close to the arrival station just so we could get our bearings and plan for the next few days. There was a nice little restaurant downstairs and a romantic candlelight dinner with Ruthie was on the cards. Well it was until my menu caught fire. I was inadvertently holding my menu over the candle and by the time I smelt fire it was too late. I was hoping no one had noticed as I put out the flame before the smoke alarm went off. The waiter calmly walked over, took the remains of the menu, gave me another one and moved the candle to the next table. So much for our romantic dinner. The next day there was light rain falling and we set off to the entertainment district thinking that would be a good way to spend a rainy day. We managed to get last minute tickets at the door to the Folies Bergère with the Jean Paul Gaultier Fashion Freak show playing to a sold out audience. It was unreal, the costumes, the music, the artists. It portrayed his journey and he must’ve faced some tough times in the early days. What I took away from it was he saw beauty in everything and ugliness was subjective. Charlie Chaplin has appeared on that stage. Another pinch me moment.

On our way to the Folies, we had passed a restaurant that our friends Wendy and Julie had told us about. The queue was out the door and down the block. On our way back there were no queues so we were in like Flynn. The restaurant, Bouillon Chartier is over 100 years old and was born from the edict of providing a reasonable meal at a reasonable price. It’s still that way today and a fabulous experience.

Navigating the metro in Paris isn’t too hard but it can be a problem when your ticket doesn’t let you out the gate. I had to piggyback Ruthie through one gate.

So we could be closer to the main tourist attractions, we transferred hotels and spent the rest of the afternoon exploring. Someone gave us the tip to go to the top level of the Galleries Lafayette shopping centre. This gave us a superb 180 degrees view of Paris looking south. Within this shopping centre was a 9 metre long glass walk, 16 metres high which looked down on the floors below and upwards was a magnificent art deco Dome. We spent some time touring the opera house, Palais Garnier Place de l’Opera. The evening was spent watching the sunset from high up at the historic Sacre-Couer Basilica, at Montematre whilst enjoying a mulled wine.

Another day and we found ourselves at the Eiffel Tower. In my mind, the only way you would get me up there was straight up in the elevator. Unfortunately the lines were too big so up the stairs to the 1st level we trudged. I was quite happy at 100 metres up. As I’ve explained previously, heights are not my strong suit and after all how much better could the views get! Agh, I could see the disappointment in Ruthie’s face so I psyched myself to climb two thirds of the way up to the next platform of the Eiffel Tower! The views over Paris were amazing but more than that I felt a sense of achievement.

After the tower climb, I don’t think we could have walked much further so we opted for an open topped double decker bus tour around Paris. We did all the major Paris tourist attractions but apart from resting our legs it gave us a feel for Paris different to what we would have seen just walking around. You definitely need a fair bit of time to explore this city properly. Getting off the bus you can certainly realise why people fall in love with Paris.

The City of Love ❤️