Paris!

G and I finally made use of our free Eurostar tickets to Paris last month (just before the tickets expired) and spent a weekend in Paris, leaving on a Friday night after work and returning Sunday evening.  The free Eurostar pass was given to us by Eurostar to compensate for the disaster of a journey we had from Paris to London approximately a year ago. We decided that this trip we would overlay the bad memories of Paris with new, happier ones.

The journey got off to a good start - the train left London on time and did not break down.  So far, so good. We arrived in Gare du Nord around 9 pm and had a very easy ride to our hotel (Hotel de Nice) in the Marais area.  Our hotel room was tiny, but that's pretty standard in Paris.  It had charm, was in a nice area and the shower was big enough that you could actually turn around while standing in it, rather than at our last hotel where turning in the shower meant having to exit and reenter it.  In short, things were looking great.  At least, until I unzipped my handbag to discover that at some point on the metro a thief had managed to unzip my bag, steal my iphone and then zip my bag back up, ensuring I didn't discover the thievery until it was far too late to identify the culprit.  The next hour was spent on the telephone to my mobile provider to cancel and lock the iphone and with me tipsily storming around our hotel room cursing all the thieves in Paris. 

Thankfully, after a night's sleep (and after remembering I have pretty good travel insurance) the weekend recovered.  Fresh baguettes and coffee the next morning, at a nearby cafe, certainly helped my outlook.  And the process of obtaining the police report was relatively painless.  Mobile phone stealing on the metro seems to be a national past time, and the police (although they didn't speak any English) were well equipped in dealing with foreigners who were victims of the metro thieves.  All I had to do was say, in French, "mobile telephone", "metro" and "stolen" and I had all the relevant forms to complete given to me and within 20 minutes had in my hand the signed police report that I needed to claim the phone on travel insurance.

The Saturday was sunny and perfect, and we decided to spend the rest of it exploring some of the  areas in Paris we haven't seen, being mainly the trendy east part of Paris - the Marais and beyond.  We spent a considerable time in the Parc des Buttes Chaumont, enjoying the sun and the outdoor bars. 

Then it was off to dinner at Restaurant Le Gaigne.  I'll put some photos up in the next couple of days.  We had the tasting menu and it was all very nice, although not exceptional.  We heard about the place through a review in the NYT from 2009 that came up when we were google searching restaurants in the area.  Unfortunately, most of the other diners were Americans who were also there seemingly because of the review, so it was not exactly a "local" experience, as the various tables of Americans were busying introducing themselves to one another, and shouting introductions across the very small restaurant. Nonetheless, it was a good night.

The next day we wandered around some of the Sunday fresh food markets and then had brunch in the Marais.  That was more of a traditional experience.  Burnch was a set (enormous) menu, including a croque monsieur.  When I asked the waitress whether it was possible to get the latter without the meat (given I'm a pescatarian) she looked horrified, saying to me "it is a problem.  It is a problem for you, as it does not taste good".  Eventually she relented, and I had a tomato and cheese croque monsieur (which, incidentally, did taste rather good).

Finally on the Sunday night we were off and back to London.  In comparison to our last trip to Paris, I would say this one was a success, the thievery notwithstanding.