Fast through France

After another lightning look at Barcelona we were on the plane to Paris. Here we met Cathe’s sister Clare who joined us in the apartment in the 8^th Arrondisment, on the  6th floor of an old building near the Cathedral of St Augustin.

Un or deux bieres in a Paris Cafe on the way home

The first impression as we headed out for dinner was the outrrrrageous prices. The same can of beer on offer in the nearby supermarket for Eur1 was Eur8 in the bar. A Hamburger was Eur18. After the reasonableness of Spain we had to seriously modify our expectations. However, we were determined to enjoy whatever products of la cuisine and les vins as might become available: so we took deep breaths, mentally loosened the belt and moved on.

With so many of the Stack women in town I was substantially relegated to child minding duties. Even our cynical offspring had heard of some of the famous landmarks and for once they even had ideas of what they wanted to see.  Famous landmarks and place names abound in the centre of Paris; and so our first outing was to walk to the Eiffel Tower via the Champs Elysees.  We mingled with the weekend Parisian crowd under the tower while buskers played accordions: spring had definitely arrived and it was all terribly Parisienne. Other subsequent outings had us walking past, through, or in any number of famous places I had only ever read about: Le Opera, Le Gare de Lyon, Le Arc de Triumph, just to name a few.

Sunday Morning at Notre Dame

Sunday saw us at mass in the Cathedral de Notre Dame. We missed the Gregorian service thanks to daylight saving; nevertheless the next main service was an ethereal delight: much of the mass was sung in French and hymns were led by a superb female soprano.  If church services were this beautiful in Rose Bay even I might show up from time to time. With the clock wound forward an hour we exited at the perfect time for lunch. Crossing the Seine via a picturesque stone bridge, we walked to a tiny brasserie that had been recommended by ex-parisiennes Simon and Alison (and a few other sources as well) and finally sat down to a proper French meal. The Salade verte avec le foie de poulet was excellent but the Plat du jour of Confit de canard was a superbly unambiguous and tasty message: yes, we are in France.

Clare's birthday - Waiting for the Confit De Canard at
the highly recommended Au Petit Fer Cheval

Unfortunately my days were curtailed by trying to get the kids to do some schooling. What a pair of recalcitrants. Most days we struggled to be out the door by 2pm, having failed to complete 2 hours of school in 4. Cant wait to hand them back to the NSW Education Department. We did manage a trip to the Musee des Artes et Metiers; after hours of whingeing about visiting another museum the boys were suitably entranced by all the engineering exhibits.   

Cool stuff in the Musee des Artes et Metiers

The lift drop ride.....literally downhill from there

With so much history and culture to soak up the boys and I naturally ended up at EuroDisney.  After choking back the bile at the EUR60 entrance fee we headed straight for the most exciting rides. For anyone who has ever idly contemplated being in a lift that malfunctions and plummets to the ground, the “Hollywood Hotel” is a must: this is what it delivers.  The Rock’n’Rollercoaster also had us screaming. Sadly after these two the entertainment dwindled into the sort of trashy stuff you would expect and four hours was enough.

The next day we were out negotiating some unaccompanied baggage: au revoir surfboards. The boys and I ducked into a promising looking street-side brasserie and voila : Escargot was on the menu.  Finbar was strangely easy to convince: Sholto took a lot of work and it needed some trademark manipulative taunting from Finbar to get him on board.  They’re not bad in an oily pesto sauce.

Escargot in Paris....Scary

After a week in Paris the boys and I were off to for a last grab of European skiing while Cathe headed off for some professional development, sculpting marble near Carrera in Italy. Les Trois Vallees is the biggest ski resort in the world, and we only managed to see about half of despite racking up some mileage over the week.  Rob Ugarte has an adventuring streak that has seen him experience more than most would need 3 lifetimes to cram in; he showed us it is still alive and well by accepting a last minute invitation to join us (in our family room- now that’s a risk taker) for a few days of Telemark madness….Finally: a ski trip with another disciple of the true religion.   

Free the Heel: and the mind.....

 We had a great few days carving up the spring slush: apart from the whiteout on the first day it was cloudless, windless, and hot: tee shirts and/or no gloves and to hell with the inevitable gravel rash.  The snow was ice in the mornings and soft and coarse in the afternoons : very reminiscent of those spring snow camping trips of my youth.  Rob’s irrepressible nature and sense of fun quickly found willing acolytes in the two boys, who instantly took to him like one of their own. I totally enjoyed having a bit of blokey time, nattering about times past, present and future: I know we solved the world’s problems, but we should have written it all down before going for the third bottle. Now we’ll have to work it out again later.  Doubtless the upper-middle class poms we shared the chalet with felt that they’d experienced a different culture while in France, but not the way they might have expected:  it was chalk and cheese with Mr Ugarte and the lawyers.

Trois Vallees - The boys in the cable car

We sadly bid adios to Rob and after a slow last day we are now on the TGV to Milan, doing somewhere between 200-300 km/h in the vicinity of Torino. After a night in an undoubtedly soulless airport hotel we will meet Cathe on the boat tomorrow in Cagliari, Sardinia, for our last hurrah. The forecast is for sunny 22 degree days: the water will still be 15 degrees though.  So it is back to the delights of Italy: Molto Bien.

Ciao.