The weekend was wonderful, apart from my car not starting when I left work on Friday! This problem happened once before and I had to call out the AA. I could not do that Friday as I had the London bus to catch, so had to leave the car at work all over the weekend. I called out the AA to look at it this morning and the mechanic said the main fuse had blown. He changed it but in the process of testing it out it blew yet again. He isolated the problem to the second immobiliser fitted by a previous owner of the car which had bad wiring. He recommended a repair as quick as possible, saying it would be best to have that second immobiliser removed rather than rewired. He said my Toyota immobiliser was perfectly adequate and that no one could bypass it. I hope it will be possible to get the work done tomorrow or at the very least while I am away on holiday.
It was so hot on Friday that I slept nearly all the way to London which was about three hours on the bus from Bath. Once there it was lovely to see our friends Aquiles and Toti again, who share the flat with a lovely young Bolivian couple called Walter and Raquel, plus another Bolivian girl called Lola, all of whom I know well. We spent the rest of the evening quietly with a nice supper that Toti had cooked, and sharing the rose wine that I had brought with us. We got to sleep pretty late but I managed to get up okay with the alarm the following morning – 4 am!!!! We were out the door and on our way to the bus stop before 5 am, arriving at Waterloo in plenty of time for our train. Even at that early hour the sun was shining and gave us an idea of the brilliant day to come. We checked in and had time for a nice breakfast before boarding the train which departed at 6.34 am. As always the Eurostar journey was pleasant and smooth; those trains always run to schedule.
We arrived at 10.28 French time where Pierrette awaited us and gave us each a metro travelcard ticket to travel around Paris throughout the day. First stop was Porte de Clignancourt for La Marche des Puces but this wasn’t like it used to be years ago. It was mostly French antique furniture and other antiques – no sign of an LP in sight! But enjoyable all the same. Some of that old French furniture is really beautiful. Around the outside were market stalls where my friend Ann bought some colourful trousers and I managed to knock the price down from 25 to 20 euros for her. I found that I could speak French okay if I said it in Spanish first and then in French!!! I was pleased to find some hair conditioner which is impossible to find anywhere over here – one from the Organics range which was discontinued about 2 years ago. One can only find it now in little budget priced shops but two years ago it was available in Boots, Superdrug and all the supermarkets.
From there we went to Halles for a quick look at some shops. Having been asked to bring back 1000 Benson and Hedges cigarettes for my sister plus some Marlborough Lights for Aquiles I wanted to get them as soon as possible. I was amazed that in a whole shopping centre we could not find even one place selling cigarettes so had to look for tabacs outside instead. But whilst in the shopping centre I fell in love with a lovely wide brimmed sun hat in pink straw with a big floppy flower on the front. I managed to resist buying it but later regretted it! Checking out the prices of cigarettes afterwards in tabacs I was amazed at how expensive they were – there used to be a big difference in the price between France and England but not now.
After this we decided to have lunch early, looking for a brasserie which offered typical French food. The first several we looked at mostly only offered beef or steak dishes which I hate but eventually we found a nice one where we chose mixed fish which came with a nice sauce and three veg (which is really unusual in France; Colin was well impressed when I told him later!). This went down very nicely with a half litre carafe of Provence rose wine. Sitting under a canopy practically on the pavement was also a pleasant experience. There was a tabac right there so I bought 1000 ciggies for Kathryn plus 7 packets of Marlborough Lights for Aquiles. It worked out at about £75 saving on the 1000 cigarettes over the price payable in England.
Afterwards our next destination was Notre Dame as Ann and I had a fond hope that we might come across some Andean musicians busking there as they used to in the past. No such luck but something was going on musically, a band playing on a huge stage in front of the Notre Dame façade, and a big crowd listening – the music was nice like a cross between African and heavy rock. It was a fund raising event for children in Africa. We listened for a while and then went inside the cathedral and were amazed that one can still do this free of charge because even in Bath Abbey one has to pay to get in. We enjoyed our tour in there and took photos of both huge rose windows and the carved frieze around the choir which was created between 1328 and 1351.
Back outside we had to walk to Pont Neuf in order to catch the boat for our trip down the Seine. This proved very reasonable at 10 euros for an hour long trip and we enjoyed every moment of it immensely and took some brilliant photos. We were mostly standing upstairs on the top deck in the open air and that was when I wished I had bought that lovely sun hat! It was so hot that I could feel my shoulders burning even with the high factor sun lotion put on earlier. So hot that one’s thirst was unquenchable so that when we piled off the boat an hour later I dived straight into the bar and downed half a draught Heineken in record time; whilst my friends downed huge bottles of water. (As you can gather, I am the non teetotaller among us!)
At this point I asked Pierrette if it would be much out of our way to go back to Halles so that I could buy the hat and she said no it was easy enough so that was where we headed next and we were so glad we did. We had to change trains at Chatelet and walking from one line to another suddenly our ears perked up and our footsteps quickened as we heard the sound of Andean music and we were so thrilled to round a corner and find a 5 piece Andean band playing the traditional music that I so love – bombo drum, charango, guitar, panpipes and flute! Even before we had heard one song Ann and I each bought a CD – the band were called Cenizas and one of the musicians Lorenzo Montoya – the one Ann bought was actually ‘Secret of the Andes’ by Lorenzo which I felt sure I recognised as being one in my collection already so I bought the other one called ‘Eaux Sacrees’. We then stayed listening to about half a dozen songs and taking a few photos before we reluctantly dragged ourselves away as time was running away with us and if we wanted to pay a quick visit to the Champs Ellysees we had to get a move on.
We came up from the metro right beside the Arc de Triomphe so were able to take some photos with it in the background. Some military parade was going on there but it was difficult to see exactly what because of the crowd. At least I am guessing it was military, there being a war museum inside the Arc de Triomphe that I once visited with Colin. I told Ann that on our next visit we would visit the museum and go to the top of the Arc because of the views from there being so amazing. We then spent the remainder of our time strolling down the Champs Ellysees, finally getting back on the metro again further down and making our way back to Gare du Nord and the Eurostar terminal. On the way I was able to buy a saucisson for Colin who really loves them, a really delicious looking one made from wild boar. At the terminal we said our goodbyes to Pierrette, checked in and had time for a large icecream, spending the last of our euros on this and several drinks for the journey. The train left at 8.43 pm French time and arrived back at Waterloo at 10.30 pm. We both slept nearly all the way home as we were exhausted with all the walking around Paris but both agreed it was a really fantastic excursion that we hope to repeat early next year – the next time the Daily Telegraph Eurostar offer takes place. Our next one will probably be Brussells in December. Back at the flat we had supper together and not too late a night as we had agreed to spend all of Sunday together. Ann and I slept like logs as you can imagine!
In the morning Toti, Aquiles, Ann and I visited two markets nearby, each about a mile from the other, within walking distance. There I was pleased to find a couple of organics shampoos to go with that conditioner bought in France and some factor 50 sun lotion to take to Tunisia. Plus we bought the ingredients to make a Peruvian style fish soup back at the flat before going out in the afternoon. Back there I helped prepare everything and watched Aquiles make it and was amazed at how delicious it was. The basic ingredients were white fish, prawns and mixed seafood, passata (tomatoes pureed), onions, garlic, fresh coriander, salt and pepper. Then when served into bowls half the juice of a lime squeezed in and a teaspoon of hot chilli sauce. It was really delicious and I am going to make it for Colin when I get home from work today.
After lunch we caught a bus to Trafalgar Square and stayed listening to a big salsa band with dancers on a stage there for a while. Then kept walking to Covent Garden where we were disappointed to find no andean band like last week. Then another bus which took us to Camden Town and we walked to Camden Lock as we were meeting one of Aquiles friends in Bar Cuba. This is a really lively area with shops and food of every nationality available as takeaways. I was especially tempted by the Moroccan take away and Ann and I decided we would get some to take with us when we left. We shared a bottle of wine with the others until finally saying our goodbyes about 5.30. We will probably see them again in Bath as our next trip to London isn’t until 28 July, with Contigo Peru on Saturday 29th. We bought the Moroccan chicken but made our way to Victoria on the underground first and then enjoyed it before catching our bus leaving at 7 pm. (It was so delicious that we will have to go back there again sometime and try the Moroccan Lamb!) We arrived back in Bath at 9.40, pretty tired after two exhausting but very enjoyable days.
Woke up this morning to thunder and rain, but this soon passed and was another very hot day. I love the hot weather but with the added humidity it isn’t easy being at work in a hot office. Roll on Wednesday and the trip to Tunisia!!!
