Paris - the city of love and arrogance

Well, we've just left Paris. We came, we walked (a lot!), we saw. The buildings in central Paris are all 17th century so it's like going back in time. It really is a beautiful city, and we walked most of it (or that's what it felt like). The only major sightseeing we missed was Sacre Coeur, as it was a little out of the way. Rachel kindly offered to take us there by car but circumstances didn't allow. Despite this, we managed to go to the Louvre, the Château de Versailles, went up the Eiffel Tower, walked along the Seine every day, visited the Arc de Triomphe, walked up and down the Champs Élysées several times, went inside the Notre Dame church (the bells! THE BELLS! - my best hunchback impression, although there were no bells) and passed through the Place de la Concorde almost every day. The sights we saw were amazing and it is an amazing city to visit.

The traffic has to be seen to be believed, or rather the way Parisian's drive. There are no lanes on the roads and almost no one uses indicators - but why would they? There are no lanes to change into, just a different part of the road to use up, even though someone might already be using it! And I really wish I had taken video of going around the Arc de Triomphe! Wow! Parisian's seem to know how it works but you have to have balls to jump into the fray.

Unfortunately, the Parisian reputation for arrogance reared its ugly head on several occasions. I'm not going to tar all French with this brush yet, until we've experienced the south next week, but if you do not speak French, they will not volunteer information if you don't ask the right question. And it seems that they really hate their jobs if they are in contact with tourists - who are everywhere. Customer service doesn't seem to have made its way to Paris yet. When we went to the Eiffel Tower on Monday, they said the lift was out so we couldn't go up the tower. Naturally we assumed they meant the lift to the first and second floors several hundred meters up. We found out the next day that it was the wheelchair lift, which bypasses 6 stairs at ground level, that was broken, but they didn't provide us this basic information and we nearly missed out. If it hadn't been for Cyril (Rachel's husband) who called the Paris Tourism Board to complain, and get some answers, we would have missed out on going up the Eiffel Tower! When we showed up on Tuesday, they were bending over backwards to help us! Thank you so much Cyril! And Rachel, poor Rachel, who showed us the sights but didn't bring suitable walking shoes. Thank you for showing us around.

So now we are on the TGV to Amsterdam. Wow, these trains are FAST! Cool! Just stopped in Brussels but we couldn't get a photo together on the platform as I'm in cattle class and Grant had to be upgraded to 1st class (and Jo as his carer) because we weren't advised by the station clerk when we arrived that we had to board first (another example of lack of information if the right questions aren't asked) when it was blatantly obvious Grant would require assistance to board the train. Then another woman who tried to help us had a go at us for not turning up earlier - we had been there for an hour before the required boarding time lady! No one told us we had to board first.

Peter and Wendy, we are just passing through, or under, Antwerpen. I took a photo but it's a bit blurry!

Anyway, time to enjoy the sights passing us by at 300kph.

Troy, Jo and Grant


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