The new adventure begins

After the last 2 weeks of somewhat stress full days for all of us, as some of you already know, to actually feel the plane lift off from Brisbane if a relief to say the least. Brisbane – Singapore – Abu Dhabi – Paris. This is a route we haven’t done before but we all agree it’s been an excellent choice. To break up the long overall flying time in 7-8 hour stints makes it so much easier. You never get to the state where you are totally bored, sore and dead tired as you normally do on the 14 hours stints where no movie in the world and no airline food in the world can save you from total boredom. Etihad Airlines gets a big tick in the margin for good service, good food, modern planes and right on time if not better.

Not much to tell about the actual flight. New thing for me was the inflight cameras in the front of the plane allowing you to see the start and the landing, very cool, might install one in my car to impress my passengers… Singapore was the usual – big and warm, Abu Dhabi – not so big, hot, but very nice and clean and excellent service as we found out when mother in law wondered off and we almost missed the plane if it hadn’t been for a helpful young native working in the airport, Paris – great views coming on over the city, airport old and worn as per usual.

These days you can catch the train directly from the airport without having to catch a bus first, great improvement! 10 stops later and 2 stops on the metro we emerge from the underground and are being met by pouring rain and thunder! Woohoo! Even though I have a map which says the hotel should be 200m from the Metro we can’t see it through the rain squalls. With my still current school French I ask in the first restaurant we find where to go and are being told to go 400m in the other direction. At the 400m mark there is no hotel to be found. Dripping wet I ask the receptionist in a nearby hotel for directions and he sends back 400m in the opposite direction. With water sloshing in our shoes by now we ask again and finally we get directions which takes us to our hotel. Despite being there by 9am they arrange for so we can check in straight away. I suspect they took some pity in our sorry look of semi drowned rats.

A shower get the tiredness rinsed away quickly and with dry socks on our feet and the tourist look on our faces we venture out in Paris. A 10 minute stroll in now semi sunshine takes us down to the Seine River and the Notre Dame Cathedral.

Being Sunday a lot of tourists around from all over the world and inside the church there’s Sunday mass. It doesn’t stop us from looking around for a while and admire the fantastic building with all its gothic art, statues and gigantic lead painted windows.

The last of the scrambled eggs from the inflight breakfast has totally diminished by 11 so we head for somewhere to eat lunch.

A pastisse to get the tummy going before some lovely country ham and cheese sandwiches hits the table. Some red wine is also needed to complete the lunch and to get the alcohol blood level up to a decent .05.

Next stop is the Pantheon which is a nice short walk up narrow streets with old houses on each side and flower baskets full of colour in every window, very pretty. The Pantheon first built in sometime 500AD and the current basilica completed in 1790 under the reign of Louis XV as a dedication to the Saint Genevieve.

A huge building now used for secular activities and many of France’s national heroes like Voltaire, Alexander Dumas, Madame Curie etc. are buried in crypts deep under the building. A large number of loud mean looking employees make sure tourists keep their voices down to honour the dead. An interesting clock sits on the floor right smack in the middle of the building and it shows the current time using a gold plated pendulum hanging down some 50 metres down from the top of the basilica. Not sure how accurate it is though since it has to be manually set to swing every 10 minutes or so. But it looks pretty cool.

From the Pantheon there’s only a short walk down do the very nice Jardine’s the Luxembourg.

60 acres of perfectly manicured gardens makes it a very popular spot for Parisienne’s and tourists. A huge pool with a fountain in the middle and a nice little palace in one end. Commissioned in the 16th century it’s an oasis in an otherwise busy concrete jungle. Some 20 photos later and our feet tell us it’s time to head back to the hotel for some recovery.

The plan is to stay awake all day today and try and get used to the time difference as quickly as possible. An early dinner this evening and some wine and we should be ready to crash in bed before 9pm and sleep all night, one would hope, and be fit and full of energy for another day tomorrow. We might do the Louvre tomorrow or head up to Montmartre for some arty farty stuff and the Sacre Coeur or do the Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe etc., time and weather will tell.